I get the idea behind it, but this very much would backfire in that only the rich could become representation. Remember they made it a rule that they aren't allowed to sleep in their office while in D.C., and 60k not only won't afford a place in D.C, it most definitely won't allow for someone to have a home near their constituents AND D.C.
So we would end up with just having first or second sons of oligarchs, 1 trained to run the companies, the other trained to represent their families best interests.
Or, and hear me out in this one, if the average is not sustainable they would need to raise the average or lower costs until a balance was reached. By forcing them to play by the very rules that are writing, there is an incentive to make them fair.
While this may not be there exact way too achieve that, the goal is still a good one to work towards.
And how is that supposed to work ? You can't fix the healthcare care system or economy in a day, so non wealthy people would still struggle to live as politicians whilst those changes are being worked on, meaning there's little motivation for them to join politics, and independently wealthy people who are just in it for the power wouldn't give a fuck about being badly paid. Look at Trump. He doesn't even take a salary, because he's corrupt and wealthy enough to not need it, so his salary being low would matter fuck all to him and other corrupt pieces of crap like him.
The problem is, representatives and senators don't live average lifestyles. They need to pay for two residences, one of which is in one of the most expensive metro areas in the country. Then the constant transit costs between the two. They also pay their staff out of their own pocket if I remember correctly.
Truth is they need to be paid much more. With 100% of salary in retirement. And they need to be barred from any kind of employment after.
Hear me out, maybe we could build some sort of large building/s with a lot of small houses in them for them to live in while in DC. The government could even give them some sort of vouchers that helps them pay the rent or the buildings could just be owned by the government.
Six of one, half dozen the other.
You provide housing directly, or money for them to choose housing themselves. Seems a distinction without a difference.
if the average is not sustainable they would need to raise the average or lower costs until a balance was reached
I think you misunderstood what you're responding to. This would create a situation where being in politics is only not sustainable for people of average means. People who are already independently wealthy would have no trouble at all sustaining themselves on an average salary and have zero (0) incentive to do anything to make life easier for you or I.
The problem isn't that people in Congress get paid a decent wage. The problem is they have so much money from their families, from their businesses, and/or from lobbyists that they're more or less totally divorced from what life is like for most people
We don't need the entire country to have a second home in DC and to be resistant to bribes.
Congress should make good enough money that they don't need to invest in the stock market and they don't care about negligible bribes. Bigger bribes are theoretically easier to catch in the legal system and/or public accountability.
I agree, and maybe not on their own, but combined with other changes, maybe. Eg. Build dorms and have them stay there when in DC, owned and paid by the state.
I’d like to see draconian controls and transparency on their finances during their time serving and a few years into it.
There are easy solutions to that problem. $60k plus cost of living stipends for the two homes, which can't be spent on anything else, and only modest homes are eligible.
That can easily be fixed. Salary is the median (not average, because making more ultra-wealthy shouldn't be encouraged) US income + median COL in DC. Maybe add some extra on top to cover travel and other expenses.
The goal is to make enriching the American people equivalent to enriching themselves. Currently it's usually the opposite.
I think the government should switch to a random lottery. Every term a random person is selected from all available and eligible citizens. It would be our civic duty, put your regular job on hold for a few years and do your part.
Most would hate it, but that’s kinda the point. If we all had to eat our own dogfood, we’d eventually start making it taste better.
I've said this for years. Live in dorms. Cafeteria food. Minimum wage. All assets put into trust and in a vanilla total market fund for 5-10 years after service. It should be like jury duty. I've not met a single person who disagrees with this system.
I’ve not met a single person who disagrees with this system.
Well consider me the first.
Then first the plan won't work, those dorms will be run by the very government politicians they are supposed to make miserable. so they won't.
And why must that be a goal in the first place? Instead of improving democracy so that politicians aren't in the pockets of PACs and actually represent the people, you want to just make them both miserable and now unelected.
If you want that random people are in charge instead of politicians a direct democracy system will work far better then this.
Think this assumes those selected have no friends or family. You can't uproot a whole family, and it would be unreasonable to break up a family for the extended period of time you imagine.
In practice, it does become making them miserable, because it's literally forced relocation and isolation from their friends, family, and financial resources.
Dorms, cafeteria food, and minimum wage are not things that most Americans would want. It would really only be a benefit to those already making minimum wage (or unemployed) and without families. For the rest those would be motives for corruption, rather than the opposite.
Lots of us, maybe even most, are under surveillance every minute we are at our job. A politician's job is 24/7 while they are in office. It wouldn't be necessary if politicians never lied or took bribes, but we live in reality.
Think the rough analogy is Jury duty. After going through that, I was frankly surprised how generally decent the folks were that were being vetted. Sure a couple were a bit off, but on the whole the folks seemed pretty reasonable. I didn't agree with some of them, but at least they seemed to be roughly rational and open to thinking about things.
Maybe not everything, but we could certainly vote on a lot more directly. There's no reason we couldn't. Representative government was a necessity when we only used horses to get everywhere. Now much less reason for it.
It could be from macro to much more micro, e.g.: what portion of the budget should be allocated to education? And then how is the budget allocated, etc. everyone must vote in the first few votes and then as the issues get more nitty gritty and local the only people voting are those in the localities and/or those who care. You could vote on everything but realistically you'll just set the main direction and the rest just happens.
The more you think about this the more complicated it seems, even if the concept isn't that complicated. I've thought about this a lot for a long time and I honestly think we'd get so much more done.
No I don't think that tracks, I'd say it's kind of a modern interpretation really. Historically it's a a darker seedier reasoning really. Traditionally representative government has been favored because the wealthy delete didn't think the people could be trusted. Unwashed uneducated masses couldn't be allowed to make decisions. The liberal bourgeoisie in no way wanted the people making any decisions. There's a reason most liberal revolutions did not result in widespread suffrage, much less universal suffrage.
After all it's not like Representatives had extra time to do research. When they weren't traveling by horse or mule they were conducting their own affairs, not researching well into the night. No it's much more about class than actual dedication.
It doesn't really matter whether it's modern or intended or accidental. The point is that it's best that the people making the decisions are educated and informed, and that takes time. That takes the kind of time that makes it a full time job, not one you can do on the side.
And yes, I understand that current representatives spend most of their time trudging up donations for campaigns, but that's less than ideal. I might even argue that makes the idea not modern at all.
How do you determine if they're educated? How do you determine if they're informed? Who decides? How would you even go about enforcing the fact that they spend their time researching? Instead of campaigning or getting donations or just fucking around?
I honestly think we need representational government. One of our big problems in this country is regular people thinking they understand all the nuance of an issue. Not that random assholes completely solve this issue, but the law of averages is enough that some would take this seriously and actually learn, listen and think before acting.
It’s mostly a joke though, obviously a random lottery will never happen, but I absolutely would choose it over what we have today.
Who decides what a random person is and what a knowledgeable person is in your scenario though? Where are these knowledgeable people? Our current Speaker of the House every time he gets in front of a TV Camera claims he knows nothing at all whatsoever. He's never heard anything he's never read anything he's never seen anything and he just doesn't know about anything. So knowledgeable people aren't in charge now.
Sortition. It's a system that sounded crazy decades ago when I first heard it, but the more and more you think about it the more and more it doesn't seem that bad.
There are also several proposals of random voting that have a lot of good things about them. In one system, you pick a random ballot out of all ballots, and whoever that person voted for wins for all positions.
Or, you can do it per elected position. Take all of the votes for each elected position and pick a random vote.
One advantage of random ballots is that no elected official is safe. A candidate who gets 60% of the vote can lose to a candidate who got 20% of the vote.
Why is this good?
Well, for one thing, it would be much harder to gerrymander. Gerrymandering generally means you have one party win most districts by a tiny amount, and the other party wins very few districts by a large amount. This strategy simply doesn't work with random ballots.
Another benefit is that politicians would be incentivized to get as many votes as possible, far beyond 50%. Even a politician who gets 90% of the vote would lose 1 in 10 elections. So, politicians would work for everybody's vote, not just for the slim majority's vote.
It has other advantages beyond that. Mostly in the realm of the fairness of votes. You vote feels completely fair. It's just as likely that your vote will decide the winner as anybody else's vote.
One big disadvantage is that there might be an extremely popular politician, who has 99% of the vote, and who still loses. This can be mitigated a bit by keeping terms short. The politician could come back in a couple of years.
Another disadvantage is that it is very difficult to recount the ballots. You basically just pick another random ballot and all of the winners might change. And related, it's more difficult to detect cheating after the fact. Like, what if the ballot wasn't completely random?
Literally exactly the opposite of what you said. I addressed those exact two points in the comment you replied to as being strengths of random ballot.
The most obvious specific benefits of random ballot to the voter are less voter dissatisfaction and feeling more like your vote counts.
Less dissatisfaction because politicians will try to appeal to every voter. They don't want to leave it up to chance.
More like your vote counts because your vote has an equal chance of choosing the winner as anybody else's vote. It doesn't matter how anybody else votes.
If you want to say that the opposite will happen, then you not only need to give specific reasons, but you should also know that there is already a lot of research on these types of elections. That's why my comment seemed so informed, while yours didn't.
You sound like much more of an ass. You obviously first responded without actually reading my comment. Wasting everyone's time instead of simply reading the comment you were responding to that had that info in it.
And now you can't even defend your previous points. You have to move the goalposts and bring up new points, half of which, again, I already addressed in that first comment you didn't read. I'll address your points and then I am done with you.
Trivial. Number all ballots the same then pick one of those numbers randomly. The votes already have to be counted together. If what you're saying is hard, then normal voting would also be hard.
That already happens with our current ballots. Sounds like you don't even vote if you don't know that.
No. Rephrasing something isn't an argument and it doesn't make it true.
The minority power point is by far your worst one. Random ballot actually gives better proportional representation on average, and makes gerrymandering more difficult, again, as I said in the first comment you didn't read. Unless you really believe democracy is supposed to strive to be "the tyranny of the majority," in which case, you're beyond help.
I'm done with you but if you try to argue things in the future, how about doing the absolute minimum and at least read what you're arguing against? Other ideas: Read a tiny bit of a related Wikipedia article. Double check your arguments before submitting them.
The author of it even says its not fair or practical
The rule is rarely, if ever, proposed as a genuine electoral system, as such a method (in Gibbard's words) "leaves too much to chance".[5] However, the rule is often used as a tiebreaker to encourage voters to cast honest ballots, and is sometimes discussed as a thought experiment.
Please again tell me how someone with 90% of the vote losing to some racist psycho due to a random ballet doesn't disenfranchise the 90% and doesn't give the minority extreme advantages?
60/40 is even worse. What should be a definite win becomes a toss up.
And I was asking how they handle determining which ballot to use when there are many different ones as each town or even districts in towns have their own ballets and would need to pull their own random ballot as well.
Minority already has far too much power, this just makes it worse not better. Some kind of ranked voting is needed, not more minority power.
And I called you an ass because of your last paragraph on your initial reply.
The idea behind a high salary for representatives is that they don't need to take on extra money from lobbyists to survive. Keep the salaries, but make bribery illegal again and things will get better. Make the salaries low AND get the money out of politics and you'll only get rich people becoming politicians. Oh and term limits should be a thing.
Bribery is still illegal. But it’s not a “bribe” unless it’s paid directly to the politician in exchange for something specific (quid pro quo). So you just need to obfuscate that deal enough so that you can’t prove it’s a bribe, in the legal sense. (SuperPACs, etc).
My last two jobs had really great insurance with no deductible and little to no premium paid by me. Really lucked out when I had a bone breaking accident.
My current insurance from a rather large company is $3500 deductible in network, $6000 out of network, and $450 a month paid by me.
More like $1000+ a month for a policy with a $7000+ annual deductible. If you're lucky and have a job with subsidized health insurance, it's much more reasonable. I'm a school bus driver and have excellent health insurance (which is rare for school bus drivers); I pay $129 a month while the district pays the rest and I have essentially no deductible.
If the job didn't pay a salary, the only people who could do the job would be the rich who don't need a salary, or those willing to accept bribes.
If you make the salary too low, it will discourage anybody who can make a better living doing something else. And, if the people doing it don't think they're being paid what they're really worth, they're more likely to take bribes or "donations" to boost their salary back up to what it should be.
Really, the salary should be high. It should be a job that people who are really qualified will want to do. It should be one where you have no need to take a bribe because you're already doing so well, and you'd be afraid of throwing away such a well compensated job.
I wouldn't say it's so that they can't be bought, so much as so they don't have to be bought. It's part of the reason they haven't voted for a pay raise and so long. Their owners don't want them to have other options.
Lawmakers don't vote for their pay raises, they don't need to. The increases were made automatic in 1989. Even with the annual increases, their pay is nothing compared to what they can make from insider information and contributions from anonymous PACs. They can be bought, government salary just can't compete with dark money.
Ah, I'd read they didn't have to vote to get a pay raise. Didn't see that they had been actively voting against it. But who needs a raise when you know you'll get waaay more money from corps and special interest groups? Heck, they'll even write the bills they want passed for you, so you don't even have to work hard.
They also carry a hell of a lot more responsibility than the average American worker. Is be in favor of a party raise along with restricting other income streams like stock investments.
I was on private health insurance for a couple of years. My premium was over $300 a month and my deductible was $7000. I had looked for an ACA policy on the government website but something with the same level of deductible was closer to $1000 a month. What really sucked is that my private policy did not qualify for the exemption from the fine you had to pay for not having health insurance. Somehow I never had to pay the fine, I dunno why not. I'm sure my policy also would have fucked me if I'd ever tried to collect on it, but fortunately I was completely healthy during that stretch.
I think this is overstated. You can't even run for Congress without being a millionaire, a millionaire's family, a lawyer, a lobbyist, or a military officer looking to cash out.
You can't get in the door of Congress without being in hoc to a constellation of private interests. Capping their pay won't change that.
Because Congress sets its own salary. I don't. So, I have no say in the matter.
Also because there's no real "cost savings" in a material sense. Congressional spending has been decoupled from federal taxation since the Great Depression. Pay congressmen $1/term. Pay them $1M/hr. I don't see any kind of change in my material condition.
Incidentally, the Gingrich Era Contract with America was billed as a legislation package to rein in the capacity for Congresscritters to personally enrich and profiteer off their positions. Similarly, Pelosi's For The People Act included a number of reforms intended to prevent Congress from double-dealing and insider trading. Despite both Speakers enjoying a bicameral majority and a friendly President during their careers, neither successfully advanced legislation to handcuff members of Congress.
Asking Congress to regulate itself is a fool's request.
We pay politicians in "X times the minimum wage"; for the sake of this example I'll say 30x the minimum wage (too much? Too little? I don't know, that's not important rn)
The thing is, they can't change this number, at all. The only way they can increase their salaries is to increase the minimum wage.
pretty sure most of them are millionaires, because the billionaire donors are giving them money, in other forms. even with those restrictions, they get millions from the billionaires in thier pockets. Thats why Dinos are fighting just as hard to keep that way.
i think it makes them more susceptible to it, because they need money, and will do anything for it. mtg and boeboe were poor by congress standard, after less than 2 years they became millionaires overnight. Mitch in the 2010s, was only 3-ish millions and increased his wealth 10times in less than 10years.
The billionaire donors are giving their campaigns money - direct bribery is still illegal. They make their millions from either a) book deals and speaking tours (generally legal and legitimate), b) insider trading (illegal but rarely enforced against congresspeople), or c) leaving Congress to influence peddle for private companies for inflated salaries (needs to be much more heavily regulated).
The Great Stink 1858 caused by the combination of everyone dumping their refuse into the river Thames and unusually low water levels, was being mostly ignored by the British parliament until the members were forced to return to work in the parliament building close to the river where the smell was at its worst.
While this sounds good on the surface, the problem is that requiring legislators to live with the same financial difficulties most of us face would lead to sharp increases in direct bribery and overt corruption. As bad as it is anyway that effectively unlimited campaign/PAC contributions can be used to corrupt them, if their personal finances were significantly more trying, it would be much worse, especially given that most legislators have more personal expenses than the average person, including maintaining resdences in both DC and their home state/district. The much better (but also much, much more difficult) solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
yeah i was a hell of a lot more sympathetic to that totally unverified supposition (not argument) when i didn't believe there was rampant corruption in every branch of local state and federal government. it's like those pictures of "LOOK WHAT COMMUNISM WOULD GET YOU" and it's just pictures of homelessness under capitalism.
solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
yeah that's the point. if these chucklefucks kicking back on open corruption were forced (forced) to live on the average american salary they'd be more apt to fix the bullshit holding wages down. that's my unverified supposition though. actually, now i've come to think of it, the fact that our government is subject to corruption despite their high compensation (supposedly) buoying up fragile moralities seems to be evidence against your initial supposition. Let's try the other way.
"Maintaining residences in both DC and their home state/district" I've got that solved: We build a dorm facility in Washington and require them to stay there.
I don't know. On one hand, I think it's naive to think that dragging these politicians down to our level is going to make them see things through a different lens, as most of them are multi-millionaires anyway and the pay they get is just the gravy on top, and reducing their salaries isn't going to fix any kind of budgetary problem all on it's own - the money that they earn off of taxpayers is nothing compared to the national debt.
On the other hand, this cadre of politicians who exercise the most power and authority is so openly corrupt now that they do not even bother to hide it anymore. I feel like you can't get much worse than we already are without them resorting to literal mustache twirling acts of villainy.
Now, if we were somehow able to make them give up their wealth, to divest themselves from the financial consequences of their actions and live with the lasting legacy that they themselves wrought for others, that might have some effect, but that would require people to be altruistic and principled enough to understand that taking a job as a public servant shouldn't make you rich, and you should do it for the good of the people you represent.
I disagree. Low salaries in congress is exactly the kind of thing that gives lobbyists power.
Poor staffers and low paid representatives are more likely to become lobbyists themselves or to take bribes. Congresspeople should be given an ultimatum, they can only serve in congress if they agree to never make income from any other source ever again in their lives… even after one term. In return, they’re guaranteed a modest pension starting when they leave that pays 80% of their current salary (should be a healthy salary), increasing with inflation. They can not trade stocks, accept gifts, or own any form of property except a single residence.
If you want to serve the people, you can only serve the people and not yourself. Congresspeople should be truly selfless individuals.
I agree that low salary is a losing game but a salary high enough to turn away all of the lobbiest is a losing battle also. Just make itillegal and enforce the rules.
Yeah, then just their spouses will work for the oil, tech, or war companies.
I do agree with everything you said, I just also know they'll slime their ways to paydays one way or another.
Where I live, lawyers go on to be judges, preside over landmark cases, leave the bench, and go work in that industry for the people they presided in favor of. We live in joke world.
In fact, it's pretty much already that. While a representative makes a decent salary at $174k/year, that's not really that much in the scheme of things. Most folks who could swing that job could swing a higher paying one, depending on the location.
So already you kind of either must want to do the job for the sake of doing the job, or (the more usual), the position has a lot of room for various 'extracurricular' income, whether it's bribery or bribery adjacent in the now, promises of future cushy private sector jobs in exchange for favors now, or ability to cash in on the fame with book deals and speaking engagements in the closest to innocuous ulterior motives associated with the position.
Pay them 5 million per year for all I care so long as they actually represent the people and not private interest groups, are not currupt, and are some of the best people for the job. And that would be an incredibility good deal.
People can be wealthy and not totally out of touch if they make an effort to listen to people
They already are. They never stop being greedy. Just look at Trump - he's in the top seat, and it's still not even close to satisfying his unquenchable thirst.
When the "right people" rarely are even an option - especially one that enough of the general populace can be convinced to vote for - that's not getting us anywhere.
It applies to staffers too. A lot of staffers are already making only $60k. In DC, you need 3-4 roommates to afford rent on that salary. Also, these are people with law degrees.
Guess what happens when they get a job offer from a lobbying firm offering $400k? Suddenly their principles are negotiable.
In the history books when they discuss the hundreds or thousands of small cuts that eventually killed America, Mike Johnson may very well be one of the most prominent captioned photos.
To be honest, I don't think most people understand what the definitions of capitalism or communism or socialism are any more.
And it cuts both ways, 99% of Lemmy is like Mirror Universe Fox News, where if they see something bad, it's capitalism's fault. Someone crashed their car? Capitalism did it. Someone got sick? Capitalism. Fox viewers blame everything on "socialism" and have no idea what it means, either. For Lemmy it seems to be just any system that exists on Earth that isn't a utopia.
Case in point: capitalism isn't actually corporate feudalism. That's not in any way what defines capitalism as an economic system.
Kids, please - humans are shit to each other under every system ever imagined. And they would be shit to each other under any new system we can imagine in the future. As is evidenced by how people are shit to each other and complain about their lives in every other country on Earth. No where is unique in that no one complains about being there.
Kids, please - humans are shit to each other under every system ever imagined.
Kids, please listen to the adult in the room.
That's a defeatist argument, it set's the goal post wayy too far, and doesn't propose a solution or at the very least point to an obstruction without a solution. I get it, I'm tired too. It's easier to say nothing will work and watch the decline than it is try to make a better future. It reads of "Capitalism is the worst form of economy, except for all the other forms we've tried." A dumb quote wrapped up in a lazy joke to make it more palatable if there ever was one.
Not to mention that saying that the only system that's worth having is one where no one has a complaint is an absurd thing to say. Be real. Nothing is perfect, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough. There are many places in the world where people are happy, usually in the countries with strong support of labor. Most are still capitalist but people live much easier, happier and fulfilling lives. Sure they have complaints but you can't please everyone.
Look, I'll admit I didn't realize I wasn't in a community I didn't subscribe to, and accidentally hit it from the front page before I had logged in. That's on me for throwing an obviously unpopular comment out here. I didn't mean to show up and stir shit on purpose. For what that's worth. And, also for what it's worth, I do support work reform. FFS the minimum wage hasn't changed for most of my adult life, and things are generally untenable for a lot of people.
With that out of the way, I'm not saying "well, it's the only system we got! Might as well keep it!" Not at all. What I am saying is to be cautious about a Grass is Greener scenario where you've built up an incredibly lofty goal of large-scale economic reforms, as if it's some panacea. It's not. Every economic system sucks, and every one is hard work to protect rights and be good to humans. It's equally possible under pure, unrestrained capitalism to be socially just and rights-respecting as it is under any other system.
For those entirely consumed by the idea that only shifting to full on socialism is the key, and that the only reason things are bad anywhere is due to capitalism, swapping out economic systems will accomplish little more than pain and suffering for the poorest among us during the transition phase. That's how it always works, and has always worked in the past. We're not so advanced as to skip that part.
So what? So I'm saying that people's minds, attitudes, and hearts are the core of the problem. Greed, not limited by governments of any sort, is the problem. Idolizing abusers and sociopaths is a problem. Focus on material wealth is a problem - and one that every single Soviet or socialist government faced as well. A command economy can't command people to change what their brain stem says.
Again, sorry for showing up here and shitting the bed. I'm just asking people to consider reforms within the system that most people know to see what's possible. Regardless of what that system is. North Korea should try the same. China did exactly that, and liberalizing their economy is why they've seen such success over the last 15-20 years. They adapted within their own system, they didn't scrap it all, let millions starve, and start from scratch because people alive today remember the last time they did that, and it was miserable.
Anyway, just my opinion. Enjoy your angry downvote and banning me from the community.
To be honest, I don’t think most people understand what the definitions of capitalism or communism or socialism are any more.
It's all just idpol now. Capitalists are on the "America Good" Team and Socialists/Communists are on the "America Bad" Team. No deeper analysis needed.
People will complain about "capitalism" because they don't have health care or their in too much debt or their single and lonely or they're LGBTQ or PoC or obviously poor while getting wailed on by a police officer. And they'll say "damn this shit sucks, must be the capitalism" when a lot of it just boils down to your neighbors and leaders being bigot pedophile freaks.
Like, you think Communism is so great? Explain Boris Yeltsin. He was a fucking Commie. And look what happened.
humans are shit to each other under every system ever imagined
Humans are a very mixed bag. But Americans are a special breed of narcissistic, consumerist, sociopaths. And not because of some kind of genetics thing, either. The country attracts these freaks like a magnet.
From Ayn Rand to Wernher von Braun to Benjamin Netanyahu to Elon Musk, the world's worst human beings are drawn to this place. They pilgrimage here and export their awfulness abroad. Or they take root and fester. Either way, America molds them into the worst humans imaginable.
Humans are a very mixed bag. But Americans are a special breed of narcissistic, consumerist, sociopaths. And not because of some kind of genetics thing, either. The country attracts these freaks like a magnet.
Sure, but cultures and nationalities do this all the time. If you've never experienced being around some Russian on vacation, I promise, Americans aren't the only annoying people out there. Or the English in any part of Western Europe that's a cheap flight away from London. For as self-deprecating as the English seem to be today, there's centuries of colonialism and exploited wealth behind it that can't be ignored, mostly due to the cultural exports that remain. For centuries, if an English or Spanish ship showed up somewhere, everyone else was going to have a bad time, and both groups happily only assumed they were the best there ever was. Cold War efforts to spread the Gospel of America around the world through Hollywood were profoundly successful, and a lot of people bought in.
Which isn't to say that every English or Spanish or Russian or American is bad, more so that under either system, and under every system of government so far, including anarchy, some total shitbags rise to the top. Maybe Spaceballs was right. Maybe Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.
I think you need to be a bit open minded why people are thinking instead telling others how they should be thinking your way.
At this point, there’s no way you’d have “power” unless you have inherited immense wealth or provided with powerful connections. I am in favour of if I have to work, so as others. And generation that’s below boomers, physically impossible to have a relaxed life if they don’t have the conditions that I’ve wrote. it’s because capitalism is always set to “grow”. You need to profit even more compared to last period so you’d be considered as “successful”.
In this world nothing ever grows indefinitely. When it does either eruptions or cancer happens. It’s not natural. If you wanna take two seats you need to kick someone off the seat to take that seat. So billionaires hold most of the money which turns into power. Look - turns out they’re the biggest capitalists in entire human history. I really couldn’t be bothered if I don’t see Coca Cola in my supermarket. Heck I don’t even need a fucking fresh starfruit available all week. So I don’t care about global gdp or bla bla. I live in one those so called “first world countries” yet I’m afraid I’m going to die in a damp cold house when I’m old because I never had been in the class of selected people. Mind you - I’ve got my own house and savings etc. worked my ass off. Yet still the future is not safe. Bank taking everything off your hand when you’re in a tight position (for example; getting redundant) and hospitals chucking you out in the street when you don’t have enough money. Holding your baby after giving birth is a “charged service” in US. This is capitalism not people being “evil”. And this can fuck off.
Anyway, hope you done read this with as an offence. I think you need to grow the way you think.
Chill. Looking down at people is the most illiterate thing that you can do to yourself.
Ps. Mind you, I’ve never praised any other “-ism” over capitalism.
I appreciate your perspective here, and to be fair, I'm open minded as to what sorts of reforms the West needs to be more sustainable. For a while there seemed to be both a sense of decorum and maybe even morals, plus regulations, that help back unfettered pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake. Personally, I think that the tech industry and finance broke that down, and with the bar set to "get it all as fast as you can," the wheels are off the cart for both a system that used to work OK-ish for many people (certainly not all).
At this point,
Like this - at what point did things work well? It wasn't a long time, historically speaking. I'm guessing based on mention of a damp, cold house you're from the UK or Ireland, and it's really just within our life times that things were working mostly OK for some, and now it's fallen apart. I'm not challenging you on this, I agree. But I'm also wondering if we're going to look to some point in the past when things did work, when was that? A decade or so? A few years? Was it when we were kids and didn't understand the bad stuff going on?
My personal gripe is that "capitalism" simply means that someone with a business takes their profits and re-invests them back into the business. Growth isn't a requirement - it's what large businesses focus on. That re-investment could be better wages for workers, or better health insurance, or nicer desks and chairs and table tennis in the break room. Growth as the goal is a choice. Also, a lot of people focus entirely on a handful of large businesses doing this. Most businesses in the UK AND the US are small businesses. Literally 99.9 % of American businesses are employ less than 50 people. Almost half of Americans work at small businesses, and they're more than half out GDP. So when 0.1% of the businesses are predatory and problematic, but also command 40% of our GDP - it seems like a touchy problem, but a solvable one.
Who needs to understand definitions? Your actions are self-evident and show who you are within the system. In a world where the powerful are scraping coins off of you for more yachts I try my best to help the people and the land. I can do that without knowing economic theory. Even a child can understand that.
Critical thinking doesn't exist on this platform. The mainstream narratives on Lemmy are built on shaky foundations and can't get past basic scrutiny. It's why the more ideologically zealous have so much censorship. This isn't a left, right, whatever issue. It's an education issue, and it's impact is reflected by every demographic in the nation.
Tbh idk why people think capitalism is a good thing.
Marx wrote a whole book on it that you should check out. The primary appeal, as a system, is that it accelerates property and infrastructure development.
They only work a few months a year. For example, in USA they are only in session a few days until November, with all of October off.
Have you ever watched them in session? Even when they're "working" it's like 90% dead time, moving at a snail's pace.
What other job pays almost 200K a year, with half of the year off, the very best of health care included, and you can take time off whenever you'd like? Months! ...and that job ensures you'll always be able to out-perform the very best with your "insightful" stock trading?... and you can appoint your husband as the "ambassador of Bermuda", and travel to Bermuda on the taxpayer's dime?
The Democrats are swimming in this shit just like "The Nazis". Just look at them. Revolting trash, the lot.
I vote, you should vote... but never forget, they are contemptuous vipers who will backstab you and everyone standing with you without a second thought. They won't even remember your name.
The whole thing is set up completely wrong in the US. Campaign ads should be prohibited outside of a few weeks before election day. Two year terms are horrible because it means even more campaigning. Revoke citizens united, give both the house and senate 4 year terms and a few other changes to campaign finance laws in particular, and you could have a reasonable congress.
They weren't ever supposed to represent you, they represent rich white men like they were intended. It's literally designed to favor the rich because literally every single one of the signers of the bill of rights was a wealthy dude, to a man they were middle - upper class and in general criminals at that.
This seems like it would make a rampant corrupt system even more corrupt. Imagine how cheap you could buy a rep for if they only made 60k on the books.
I disagree. Everyone believes that people are greedy and their only goal in life is money hoarding. But if you ask them what their own goals are, getting filthy rich has very, very low priority.
If politicians are greedy, that's because 1) to become a politician (in the USA), you already have to be rich, and 2) if politicians are paid lots of money, greedy people want to become politicians.
You don't want to attract greedy assholes to represent you, but that's exactly what you're doing if you pay them too much. The people you do want to be politicians are those who aren't interested in money.
I want to hire someone who will take over vital aspects of my survival. But I want to do it in a punitive sort of way that makes sure the job will only be taken by people without the education, experience, and talent to demand more.
It's okay to pay politicians. This genuinely is a "pay more, get more" kind of situation, at least up to a reasonable point.
Remember it's not just the Republicans both sides of the aisle got their pockets loaded with bribe money to not change any of the laws. You get Jeffries on national TV crying about the usual Democratic talking points having everyone shake their head and saying not this shit again. Clearly he does not give a fuck about the $40,000 to $80,000 crowd they can eat cake. He wants to help the poor and there's nothing wrong with that but the main priority is helping everybody but don't forget the middle ground which they always do.
I think it would be better to tie it to a multiple of the minimum wage e.g ~3 or something like that. Then people would find it worth running for and they would be incentivised to increase the minimum wage.
But the problem isn't really their pay, IMO, it's what they can do with it. They can buy up shit, invest in companies they collude with to increase their yield, and basically build up their wealth. A #WealthTax would make it much more difficult to do so. They'd have to spend the money and re-inject it into the economy instead of hoarding it like a bunch of geriatric dragons.
Unfortunately that's one issue with too many workers is they want others to have less, like they do, rather than demand that they also deserve more! Take away what's good for all, rather than feel they deserve it too. It's low self-esteem perhaps and many need therapy, but healthcare costs too much and told it's not macho to do so won't. Lots of "self made" copium all around too so they don't want better for all. That's part of how we are here rather than like workers in EU that have benefits they expect as basic, and usa like "oh please some crumbs, sir!" and pretend they're badass and drive home in their giant trucks, they owe more on than their value.
181 Comments
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 106 pts · 1d
I get the idea behind it, but this very much would backfire in that only the rich could become representation. Remember they made it a rule that they aren't allowed to sleep in their office while in D.C., and 60k not only won't afford a place in D.C, it most definitely won't allow for someone to have a home near their constituents AND D.C.
So we would end up with just having first or second sons of oligarchs, 1 trained to run the companies, the other trained to represent their families best interests.
Godnroc@lemmy.world · 48 pts · 1d
Or, and hear me out in this one, if the average is not sustainable they would need to raise the average or lower costs until a balance was reached. By forcing them to play by the very rules that are writing, there is an incentive to make them fair.
While this may not be there exact way too achieve that, the goal is still a good one to work towards.
Devial@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1d
And how is that supposed to work ? You can't fix the healthcare care system or economy in a day, so non wealthy people would still struggle to live as politicians whilst those changes are being worked on, meaning there's little motivation for them to join politics, and independently wealthy people who are just in it for the power wouldn't give a fuck about being badly paid. Look at Trump. He doesn't even take a salary, because he's corrupt and wealthy enough to not need it, so his salary being low would matter fuck all to him and other corrupt pieces of crap like him.
Steve@communick.news · 8 pts · 1d
The problem is, representatives and senators don't live average lifestyles. They need to pay for two residences, one of which is in one of the most expensive metro areas in the country. Then the constant transit costs between the two. They also pay their staff out of their own pocket if I remember correctly.
Truth is they need to be paid much more. With 100% of salary in retirement. And they need to be barred from any kind of employment after.
thejoker954@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
Hear me out, maybe we could build some sort of large building/s with a lot of small houses in them for them to live in while in DC. The government could even give them some sort of vouchers that helps them pay the rent or the buildings could just be owned by the government.
Steve@communick.news · 3 pts · 1d
Six of one, half dozen the other.
You provide housing directly, or money for them to choose housing themselves. Seems a distinction without a difference.
Serinus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
There's also value in it being decentralized.
protist@retrofed.com · 4 pts · 1d
I think you misunderstood what you're responding to. This would create a situation where being in politics is only not sustainable for people of average means. People who are already independently wealthy would have no trouble at all sustaining themselves on an average salary and have zero (0) incentive to do anything to make life easier for you or I.
The problem isn't that people in Congress get paid a decent wage. The problem is they have so much money from their families, from their businesses, and/or from lobbyists that they're more or less totally divorced from what life is like for most people
galacticbackhoe@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 17h
You could have just posted the image again, but this was slightly less cheeky. I did enjoy the hear me out.
Serinus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
We don't need the entire country to have a second home in DC and to be resistant to bribes.
Congress should make good enough money that they don't need to invest in the stock market and they don't care about negligible bribes. Bigger bribes are theoretically easier to catch in the legal system and/or public accountability.
Asetru@feddit.org · 15 pts · 1d
Not only the rich but also the corrupt that would then sell their voice to the highest bidder.
terminatortwo@piefed.social · 26 pts · 1d
Good thing neither of those are the case in the current system!
Steve@communick.news · 11 pts · 1d
The point is, these changes wouldn't help any of those things.
terminatortwo@piefed.social · 4 pts · 1d
I agree, and maybe not on their own, but combined with other changes, maybe. Eg. Build dorms and have them stay there when in DC, owned and paid by the state.
I’d like to see draconian controls and transparency on their finances during their time serving and a few years into it.
CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
Well that's easy then. Federally owned dorm housing for congress.
blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 1d
There are easy solutions to that problem. $60k plus cost of living stipends for the two homes, which can't be spent on anything else, and only modest homes are eligible.
Tiger@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 1d
For people complaining about the cost of living to cover in DC, build them some public housing barracks they can stay in so they have that covered.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
Agreed, but mostly why would a rep not be able to sleep on their office and return home? That's rediculous
Serinus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Some of the poorer reps were doing that and Congress decided they didn't like it.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
Some state legislatures already do stuff like this. Full time job for a few months out of the year that pays like $40k.
The people who run for office are the people who can afford to.
discocactus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
That's BS, you could definitely afford to live there, it'd just be in a shithole. Which is exactly the point.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 1d
How many people do you know making $60k per year that maintain two homes in cities a thousand miles apart,and frequently travel between them?
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 11h
That can easily be fixed. Salary is the median (not average, because making more ultra-wealthy shouldn't be encouraged) US income + median COL in DC. Maybe add some extra on top to cover travel and other expenses.
The goal is to make enriching the American people equivalent to enriching themselves. Currently it's usually the opposite.
4grams@awful.systems · 57 pts · 1d
I think the government should switch to a random lottery. Every term a random person is selected from all available and eligible citizens. It would be our civic duty, put your regular job on hold for a few years and do your part.
Most would hate it, but that’s kinda the point. If we all had to eat our own dogfood, we’d eventually start making it taste better.
discocactus@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 1d
I've said this for years. Live in dorms. Cafeteria food. Minimum wage. All assets put into trust and in a vanilla total market fund for 5-10 years after service. It should be like jury duty. I've not met a single person who disagrees with this system.
TheMightyCat@ani.social · 13 pts · 1d
Well consider me the first.
Then first the plan won't work, those dorms will be run by the very government politicians they are supposed to make miserable. so they won't.
And why must that be a goal in the first place? Instead of improving democracy so that politicians aren't in the pockets of PACs and actually represent the people, you want to just make them both miserable and now unelected.
If you want that random people are in charge instead of politicians a direct democracy system will work far better then this.
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Who said anything about making them miserable? That isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the goal. The goal is to remove incentives to be corrupt.
A nice dorm and high quality food provided to them removes some of that.
Locking assets into total market funds removes incentive to inside trade, because you can’t.
TheMightyCat@ani.social · 5 pts · 1d
I got that from this statement, my mistake then.
ThisUsernameKillsFascists@piefed.social · 1 pts · 22h
jj4211@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Think this assumes those selected have no friends or family. You can't uproot a whole family, and it would be unreasonable to break up a family for the extended period of time you imagine.
In practice, it does become making them miserable, because it's literally forced relocation and isolation from their friends, family, and financial resources.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Oh look! You've made the bribery problem even worse.
ThisUsernameKillsFascists@piefed.social · 1 pts · 22h
Dorms, cafeteria food, and minimum wage are not things that most Americans would want. It would really only be a benefit to those already making minimum wage (or unemployed) and without families. For the rest those would be motives for corruption, rather than the opposite.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Most importantly, 24/7 surveillance. No secrets. No back room deals.
Serinus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
No one should live under 24/7 surveillance.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 19h
Lots of us, maybe even most, are under surveillance every minute we are at our job. A politician's job is 24/7 while they are in office. It wouldn't be necessary if politicians never lied or took bribes, but we live in reality.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 19 pts · 1d
Have you met a random person?
discocactus@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
Know any politicians?
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
Probably why they're here instead of Reddit.
4grams@awful.systems · 2 pts · 1d
I have indeed, I still trust them more than anyone who actually wants to be in politics.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Think the rough analogy is Jury duty. After going through that, I was frankly surprised how generally decent the folks were that were being vetted. Sure a couple were a bit off, but on the whole the folks seemed pretty reasonable. I didn't agree with some of them, but at least they seemed to be roughly rational and open to thinking about things.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 4 pts · 1d
Couldn't we all just vote on shit regularly from home and do away with representatives altogether?
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1d
Maybe not everything, but we could certainly vote on a lot more directly. There's no reason we couldn't. Representative government was a necessity when we only used horses to get everywhere. Now much less reason for it.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 1d
It could be from macro to much more micro, e.g.: what portion of the budget should be allocated to education? And then how is the budget allocated, etc. everyone must vote in the first few votes and then as the issues get more nitty gritty and local the only people voting are those in the localities and/or those who care. You could vote on everything but realistically you'll just set the main direction and the rest just happens.
The more you think about this the more complicated it seems, even if the concept isn't that complicated. I've thought about this a lot for a long time and I honestly think we'd get so much more done.
Serinus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
The other point of representative government is that the people making the decisions can spend the time to research what they're voting on.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 12h
No I don't think that tracks, I'd say it's kind of a modern interpretation really. Historically it's a a darker seedier reasoning really. Traditionally representative government has been favored because the wealthy delete didn't think the people could be trusted. Unwashed uneducated masses couldn't be allowed to make decisions. The liberal bourgeoisie in no way wanted the people making any decisions. There's a reason most liberal revolutions did not result in widespread suffrage, much less universal suffrage.
After all it's not like Representatives had extra time to do research. When they weren't traveling by horse or mule they were conducting their own affairs, not researching well into the night. No it's much more about class than actual dedication.
Serinus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 11h
It doesn't really matter whether it's modern or intended or accidental. The point is that it's best that the people making the decisions are educated and informed, and that takes time. That takes the kind of time that makes it a full time job, not one you can do on the side.
And yes, I understand that current representatives spend most of their time trudging up donations for campaigns, but that's less than ideal. I might even argue that makes the idea not modern at all.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 10h
How do you determine if they're educated? How do you determine if they're informed? Who decides? How would you even go about enforcing the fact that they spend their time researching? Instead of campaigning or getting donations or just fucking around?
4grams@awful.systems · 1 pts · 1d
I honestly think we need representational government. One of our big problems in this country is regular people thinking they understand all the nuance of an issue. Not that random assholes completely solve this issue, but the law of averages is enough that some would take this seriously and actually learn, listen and think before acting.
It’s mostly a joke though, obviously a random lottery will never happen, but I absolutely would choose it over what we have today.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Who decides what a random person is and what a knowledgeable person is in your scenario though? Where are these knowledgeable people? Our current Speaker of the House every time he gets in front of a TV Camera claims he knows nothing at all whatsoever. He's never heard anything he's never read anything he's never seen anything and he just doesn't know about anything. So knowledgeable people aren't in charge now.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Sortition. It's a system that sounded crazy decades ago when I first heard it, but the more and more you think about it the more and more it doesn't seem that bad.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
There are also several proposals of random voting that have a lot of good things about them. In one system, you pick a random ballot out of all ballots, and whoever that person voted for wins for all positions.
Or, you can do it per elected position. Take all of the votes for each elected position and pick a random vote.
One advantage of random ballots is that no elected official is safe. A candidate who gets 60% of the vote can lose to a candidate who got 20% of the vote.
Why is this good?
Well, for one thing, it would be much harder to gerrymander. Gerrymandering generally means you have one party win most districts by a tiny amount, and the other party wins very few districts by a large amount. This strategy simply doesn't work with random ballots.
Another benefit is that politicians would be incentivized to get as many votes as possible, far beyond 50%. Even a politician who gets 90% of the vote would lose 1 in 10 elections. So, politicians would work for everybody's vote, not just for the slim majority's vote.
It has other advantages beyond that. Mostly in the realm of the fairness of votes. You vote feels completely fair. It's just as likely that your vote will decide the winner as anybody else's vote.
One big disadvantage is that there might be an extremely popular politician, who has 99% of the vote, and who still loses. This can be mitigated a bit by keeping terms short. The politician could come back in a couple of years.
Another disadvantage is that it is very difficult to recount the ballots. You basically just pick another random ballot and all of the winners might change. And related, it's more difficult to detect cheating after the fact. Like, what if the ballot wasn't completely random?
Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
Seems like that would cause massive voter dissatisfaction and less people to vote. Not many vote now because they feel like their vote doesn't count
BillyClark@piefed.social · -2 pts · 1d
Literally exactly the opposite of what you said. I addressed those exact two points in the comment you replied to as being strengths of random ballot.
The most obvious specific benefits of random ballot to the voter are less voter dissatisfaction and feeling more like your vote counts.
Less dissatisfaction because politicians will try to appeal to every voter. They don't want to leave it up to chance.
More like your vote counts because your vote has an equal chance of choosing the winner as anybody else's vote. It doesn't matter how anybody else votes.
If you want to say that the opposite will happen, then you not only need to give specific reasons, but you should also know that there is already a lot of research on these types of elections. That's why my comment seemed so informed, while yours didn't.
Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Your comment makes you sound like an ass.
There are many thing wrong with it off the top of my head
Having someone with 90% support lose to some racist nazi seems like a shit system
BillyClark@piefed.social · -1 pts · 22h
You sound like much more of an ass. You obviously first responded without actually reading my comment. Wasting everyone's time instead of simply reading the comment you were responding to that had that info in it.
And now you can't even defend your previous points. You have to move the goalposts and bring up new points, half of which, again, I already addressed in that first comment you didn't read. I'll address your points and then I am done with you.
I'm done with you but if you try to argue things in the future, how about doing the absolute minimum and at least read what you're arguing against? Other ideas: Read a tiny bit of a related Wikipedia article. Double check your arguments before submitting them.
Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 10h
Maybe you should yourself?
The author of it even says its not fair or practical
Please again tell me how someone with 90% of the vote losing to some racist psycho due to a random ballet doesn't disenfranchise the 90% and doesn't give the minority extreme advantages?
60/40 is even worse. What should be a definite win becomes a toss up.
And I was asking how they handle determining which ballot to use when there are many different ones as each town or even districts in towns have their own ballets and would need to pull their own random ballot as well.
Minority already has far too much power, this just makes it worse not better. Some kind of ranked voting is needed, not more minority power.
And I called you an ass because of your last paragraph on your initial reply.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 42 pts · 1d
The idea behind a high salary for representatives is that they don't need to take on extra money from lobbyists to survive. Keep the salaries, but make bribery illegal again and things will get better. Make the salaries low AND get the money out of politics and you'll only get rich people becoming politicians. Oh and term limits should be a thing.
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 1d
Bribery is still illegal. But it’s not a “bribe” unless it’s paid directly to the politician in exchange for something specific (quid pro quo). So you just need to obfuscate that deal enough so that you can’t prove it’s a bribe, in the legal sense. (SuperPACs, etc).
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 1d
Tbf yes, that's what I meant. The legal form of bribery, shouldn't be.
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
99% of a lawyers job is to find loopholes in the law.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Yes, and thus we should endeavor to find and close the loopholes as they come up.
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 15h
Can we do that faster than AI can find new loopholes?
RagingRobot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Just pay well in advance of whatever you ask for and it's fine apparently
discocactus@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 1d
I'm sorry who the fuck has a $1000 deductible??? We have decent insurance for the US and the deductible is $7500 each (family plan thru employment)...
jtrek@startrek.website · 6 pts · 1d
My last two jobs had really great insurance with no deductible and little to no premium paid by me. Really lucked out when I had a bone breaking accident.
My current insurance from a rather large company is $3500 deductible in network, $6000 out of network, and $450 a month paid by me.
WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 1d
If you make like <=25k/year (individual), subsidizes make it possible...
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 1d
My insurance is fully covered by my employer. It's rare, but it does exist.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
Your employer pays your deductible?
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 23h
Sorry I meant premium. I hate insurance terminology
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 31 pts · 1d
OP has no idea what health insurance cost these days.
ryannathans@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 1d
Nor do international members, care to share?
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
More like $1000+ a month for a policy with a $7000+ annual deductible. If you're lucky and have a job with subsidized health insurance, it's much more reasonable. I'm a school bus driver and have excellent health insurance (which is rare for school bus drivers); I pay $129 a month while the district pays the rest and I have essentially no deductible.
DotEliot@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 1d
I guess the idea of paying them well is that they can't be bought with bribes. Then again, when has any wealthy person ever been satisfied.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 1d
If the job didn't pay a salary, the only people who could do the job would be the rich who don't need a salary, or those willing to accept bribes.
If you make the salary too low, it will discourage anybody who can make a better living doing something else. And, if the people doing it don't think they're being paid what they're really worth, they're more likely to take bribes or "donations" to boost their salary back up to what it should be.
Really, the salary should be high. It should be a job that people who are really qualified will want to do. It should be one where you have no need to take a bribe because you're already doing so well, and you'd be afraid of throwing away such a well compensated job.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 1d
I wouldn't say it's so that they can't be bought, so much as so they don't have to be bought. It's part of the reason they haven't voted for a pay raise and so long. Their owners don't want them to have other options.
EchoCranium@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 1d
Lawmakers don't vote for their pay raises, they don't need to. The increases were made automatic in 1989. Even with the annual increases, their pay is nothing compared to what they can make from insider information and contributions from anonymous PACs. They can be bought, government salary just can't compete with dark money.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
That isn't quite accurate. Congress hasn't gotten a pay raise since 2009. Because they vote against giving themselves one.
EchoCranium@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1d
Ah, I'd read they didn't have to vote to get a pay raise. Didn't see that they had been actively voting against it. But who needs a raise when you know you'll get waaay more money from corps and special interest groups? Heck, they'll even write the bills they want passed for you, so you don't even have to work hard.
DotEliot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Ah, that makes sense.
Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1d
Honestly, there’s a load of satisfied wealthy people - you just don’t hear about them because, well, there’s literally nothing to report about them.
rethnor@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
They also carry a hell of a lot more responsibility than the average American worker. Is be in favor of a party raise along with restricting other income streams like stock investments.
Cheebus@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 1d
300 a month and a thousand dollar deductible?!?!
where the fuck is that deal, it’s like 8k deductible and 600 a month
beejboytyson@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Oh man I'm sorry
DemandtheOxfordComma@sh.itjust.works · 21 pts · 1d
And they have to work 40 hours a week every week, or they get no benefits... just..like..us.
discocactus@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
Or rather, they only get the benefits guaranteed to all citizens.
turdburglar@piefed.social · 17 pts · 1d
$1000 deductible?? i wish
3abas@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
$300/month 😂😭😢😐
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I was on private health insurance for a couple of years. My premium was over $300 a month and my deductible was $7000. I had looked for an ACA policy on the government website but something with the same level of deductible was closer to $1000 a month. What really sucked is that my private policy did not qualify for the exemption from the fine you had to pay for not having health insurance. Somehow I never had to pay the fine, I dunno why not. I'm sure my policy also would have fucked me if I'd ever tried to collect on it, but fortunately I was completely healthy during that stretch.
FlexibleToast@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 1d
I agree on spirit, but in practice this will just make them even easier to be bought.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 22h
As if they aren't already bought. At least you'll have one of your own elevated and not some already rich asshole trying to get richer.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 22h
I honestly believe that AoC's personal finances are shit.
FlexibleToast@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7m
I didn't say they aren't already, just that it would be even easier if they're paid less.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 23h
I think this is overstated. You can't even run for Congress without being a millionaire, a millionaire's family, a lawyer, a lobbyist, or a military officer looking to cash out.
You can't get in the door of Congress without being in hoc to a constellation of private interests. Capping their pay won't change that.
thegerald@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 22h
you got a point. Also I think that they get bought of either way, so why not safe a little on their salary ;)
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22h
Because Congress sets its own salary. I don't. So, I have no say in the matter.
Also because there's no real "cost savings" in a material sense. Congressional spending has been decoupled from federal taxation since the Great Depression. Pay congressmen $1/term. Pay them $1M/hr. I don't see any kind of change in my material condition.
Incidentally, the Gingrich Era Contract with America was billed as a legislation package to rein in the capacity for Congresscritters to personally enrich and profiteer off their positions. Similarly, Pelosi's For The People Act included a number of reforms intended to prevent Congress from double-dealing and insider trading. Despite both Speakers enjoying a bicameral majority and a friendly President during their careers, neither successfully advanced legislation to handcuff members of Congress.
Asking Congress to regulate itself is a fool's request.
thegerald@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 4h
Hey Thanks. I didn't know any of that.
captain_oni@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 1d
How about this:
We pay politicians in "X times the minimum wage"; for the sake of this example I'll say 30x the minimum wage (too much? Too little? I don't know, that's not important rn)
The thing is, they can't change this number, at all. The only way they can increase their salaries is to increase the minimum wage.
Soulcreator@programming.dev · 4 pts · 1d
I love this idea, if they want a raise they'd have to raise the federal minimum wage.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
Okay, we need you to throw your hat in the ring and start representin'. I would def vote for you.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 13 pts · 1d
pretty sure most of them are millionaires, because the billionaire donors are giving them money, in other forms. even with those restrictions, they get millions from the billionaires in thier pockets. Thats why Dinos are fighting just as hard to keep that way.
CitizenKong@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
Also politicians wouldn't exactly be less corruptible if they were poorer.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4h
i think it makes them more susceptible to it, because they need money, and will do anything for it. mtg and boeboe were poor by congress standard, after less than 2 years they became millionaires overnight. Mitch in the 2010s, was only 3-ish millions and increased his wealth 10times in less than 10years.
ThisUsernameKillsFascists@piefed.social · 1 pts · 22h
The billionaire donors are giving their campaigns money - direct bribery is still illegal. They make their millions from either a) book deals and speaking tours (generally legal and legitimate), b) insider trading (illegal but rarely enforced against congresspeople), or c) leaving Congress to influence peddle for private companies for inflated salaries (needs to be much more heavily regulated).
DaddleDew@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 1d
The Great Stink 1858 caused by the combination of everyone dumping their refuse into the river Thames and unusually low water levels, was being mostly ignored by the British parliament until the members were forced to return to work in the parliament building close to the river where the smell was at its worst.
ThisUsernameKillsFascists@piefed.social · 13 pts · 22h
While this sounds good on the surface, the problem is that requiring legislators to live with the same financial difficulties most of us face would lead to sharp increases in direct bribery and overt corruption. As bad as it is anyway that effectively unlimited campaign/PAC contributions can be used to corrupt them, if their personal finances were significantly more trying, it would be much worse, especially given that most legislators have more personal expenses than the average person, including maintaining resdences in both DC and their home state/district. The much better (but also much, much more difficult) solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
BussyGyatt@feddit.org · 14 pts · 22h
yeah i was a hell of a lot more sympathetic to that totally unverified supposition (not argument) when i didn't believe there was rampant corruption in every branch of local state and federal government. it's like those pictures of "LOOK WHAT COMMUNISM WOULD GET YOU" and it's just pictures of homelessness under capitalism.
yeah that's the point. if these chucklefucks kicking back on open corruption were forced (forced) to live on the average american salary they'd be more apt to fix the bullshit holding wages down. that's my unverified supposition though. actually, now i've come to think of it, the fact that our government is subject to corruption despite their high compensation (supposedly) buoying up fragile moralities seems to be evidence against your initial supposition. Let's try the other way.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 17h
Lmao they have all ways been taking bribes. Lobbying is legalized bribery…
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 16h
"Maintaining residences in both DC and their home state/district" I've got that solved: We build a dorm facility in Washington and require them to stay there.
Furbag@pawb.social · 3 pts · 21h
I don't know. On one hand, I think it's naive to think that dragging these politicians down to our level is going to make them see things through a different lens, as most of them are multi-millionaires anyway and the pay they get is just the gravy on top, and reducing their salaries isn't going to fix any kind of budgetary problem all on it's own - the money that they earn off of taxpayers is nothing compared to the national debt.
On the other hand, this cadre of politicians who exercise the most power and authority is so openly corrupt now that they do not even bother to hide it anymore. I feel like you can't get much worse than we already are without them resorting to literal mustache twirling acts of villainy.
Now, if we were somehow able to make them give up their wealth, to divest themselves from the financial consequences of their actions and live with the lasting legacy that they themselves wrought for others, that might have some effect, but that would require people to be altruistic and principled enough to understand that taking a job as a public servant shouldn't make you rich, and you should do it for the good of the people you represent.
ProdigiousInsanity@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 14h
Then investigate, have a process, stop treating them as untouchable prima donas
teelin134@programming.dev · 12 pts · 1d
I disagree. Low salaries in congress is exactly the kind of thing that gives lobbyists power.
Poor staffers and low paid representatives are more likely to become lobbyists themselves or to take bribes. Congresspeople should be given an ultimatum, they can only serve in congress if they agree to never make income from any other source ever again in their lives… even after one term. In return, they’re guaranteed a modest pension starting when they leave that pays 80% of their current salary (should be a healthy salary), increasing with inflation. They can not trade stocks, accept gifts, or own any form of property except a single residence.
If you want to serve the people, you can only serve the people and not yourself. Congresspeople should be truly selfless individuals.
JiveTurkey@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
I agree that low salary is a losing game but a salary high enough to turn away all of the lobbiest is a losing battle also. Just make itillegal and enforce the rules.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Yeah, then just their spouses will work for the oil, tech, or war companies.
I do agree with everything you said, I just also know they'll slime their ways to paydays one way or another.
Where I live, lawyers go on to be judges, preside over landmark cases, leave the bench, and go work in that industry for the people they presided in favor of. We live in joke world.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 1d
We are long past the point where they represented us.
discocactus@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
They never represented "us" in the broad sense.
nathan@lem.permisuan.com · 10 pts · 1d
I thought after citizens united they represent corporations not us
im_fine_sandy@nord.pub · 8 pts · 1d
Salary will have unintended consequences.
Why would anyone choose that job unless they were already very wealthy?
UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 1d
People who want to enact change. You can find plenty of those they just don't have any visibility because money.
im_fine_sandy@nord.pub · 6 pts · 1d
I think everyone wants to "enact change".
The problem is, the people with the requisite skills can earn much more than $60k doing something else.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
In fact, it's pretty much already that. While a representative makes a decent salary at $174k/year, that's not really that much in the scheme of things. Most folks who could swing that job could swing a higher paying one, depending on the location.
So already you kind of either must want to do the job for the sake of doing the job, or (the more usual), the position has a lot of room for various 'extracurricular' income, whether it's bribery or bribery adjacent in the now, promises of future cushy private sector jobs in exchange for favors now, or ability to cash in on the fame with book deals and speaking engagements in the closest to innocuous ulterior motives associated with the position.
Marn@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 1d
Pay them 5 million per year for all I care so long as they actually represent the people and not private interest groups, are not currupt, and are some of the best people for the job. And that would be an incredibility good deal.
People can be wealthy and not totally out of touch if they make an effort to listen to people
wewbull@feddit.uk · 8 pts · 1d
You don't want people in power being easy to bribe. It's bad enough as it is.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 1d
They already are. They never stop being greedy. Just look at Trump - he's in the top seat, and it's still not even close to satisfying his unquenchable thirst.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 7 pts · 1d
Agreed, but you don't stop it by paying them less. You have to regulate and enforce it.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
Yeah, about that enforcement part... Never gonna happen without some major upheaval.
wewbull@feddit.uk · -1 pts · 1d
Or just vote for the right people.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 1d
When the "right people" rarely are even an option - especially one that enough of the general populace can be convinced to vote for - that's not getting us anywhere.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 1d
Pay them less and the rich people will be an option even more rarely because only people already rich can get in.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 1d
Yeah, their pay isn't the problem. The lobbying and corruption is.
teelin134@programming.dev · 3 pts · 1d
It applies to staffers too. A lot of staffers are already making only $60k. In DC, you need 3-4 roommates to afford rent on that salary. Also, these are people with law degrees.
Guess what happens when they get a job offer from a lobbying firm offering $400k? Suddenly their principles are negotiable.
Malica@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 1d
Y'all got a 1k deductible?
spacegoat@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
In the history books when they discuss the hundreds or thousands of small cuts that eventually killed America, Mike Johnson may very well be one of the most prominent captioned photos.
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 7 pts · 1d
Well then that’s not capitalism.
Tbh idk why people think capitalism is a good thing. It’s just feudalism with corporations.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
To be honest, I don't think most people understand what the definitions of capitalism or communism or socialism are any more.
And it cuts both ways, 99% of Lemmy is like Mirror Universe Fox News, where if they see something bad, it's capitalism's fault. Someone crashed their car? Capitalism did it. Someone got sick? Capitalism. Fox viewers blame everything on "socialism" and have no idea what it means, either. For Lemmy it seems to be just any system that exists on Earth that isn't a utopia.
Case in point: capitalism isn't actually corporate feudalism. That's not in any way what defines capitalism as an economic system.
Kids, please - humans are shit to each other under every system ever imagined. And they would be shit to each other under any new system we can imagine in the future. As is evidenced by how people are shit to each other and complain about their lives in every other country on Earth. No where is unique in that no one complains about being there.
InputZero@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 23h
Kids, please listen to the adult in the room.
That's a defeatist argument, it set's the goal post wayy too far, and doesn't propose a solution or at the very least point to an obstruction without a solution. I get it, I'm tired too. It's easier to say nothing will work and watch the decline than it is try to make a better future. It reads of "Capitalism is the worst form of economy, except for all the other forms we've tried." A dumb quote wrapped up in a lazy joke to make it more palatable if there ever was one.
Not to mention that saying that the only system that's worth having is one where no one has a complaint is an absurd thing to say. Be real. Nothing is perfect, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough. There are many places in the world where people are happy, usually in the countries with strong support of labor. Most are still capitalist but people live much easier, happier and fulfilling lives. Sure they have complaints but you can't please everyone.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22h
Look, I'll admit I didn't realize I wasn't in a community I didn't subscribe to, and accidentally hit it from the front page before I had logged in. That's on me for throwing an obviously unpopular comment out here. I didn't mean to show up and stir shit on purpose. For what that's worth. And, also for what it's worth, I do support work reform. FFS the minimum wage hasn't changed for most of my adult life, and things are generally untenable for a lot of people.
With that out of the way, I'm not saying "well, it's the only system we got! Might as well keep it!" Not at all. What I am saying is to be cautious about a Grass is Greener scenario where you've built up an incredibly lofty goal of large-scale economic reforms, as if it's some panacea. It's not. Every economic system sucks, and every one is hard work to protect rights and be good to humans. It's equally possible under pure, unrestrained capitalism to be socially just and rights-respecting as it is under any other system.
For those entirely consumed by the idea that only shifting to full on socialism is the key, and that the only reason things are bad anywhere is due to capitalism, swapping out economic systems will accomplish little more than pain and suffering for the poorest among us during the transition phase. That's how it always works, and has always worked in the past. We're not so advanced as to skip that part.
So what? So I'm saying that people's minds, attitudes, and hearts are the core of the problem. Greed, not limited by governments of any sort, is the problem. Idolizing abusers and sociopaths is a problem. Focus on material wealth is a problem - and one that every single Soviet or socialist government faced as well. A command economy can't command people to change what their brain stem says.
Again, sorry for showing up here and shitting the bed. I'm just asking people to consider reforms within the system that most people know to see what's possible. Regardless of what that system is. North Korea should try the same. China did exactly that, and liberalizing their economy is why they've seen such success over the last 15-20 years. They adapted within their own system, they didn't scrap it all, let millions starve, and start from scratch because people alive today remember the last time they did that, and it was miserable.
Anyway, just my opinion. Enjoy your angry downvote and banning me from the community.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 20h
It's all just idpol now. Capitalists are on the "America Good" Team and Socialists/Communists are on the "America Bad" Team. No deeper analysis needed.
People will complain about "capitalism" because they don't have health care or their in too much debt or their single and lonely or they're LGBTQ or PoC or obviously poor while getting wailed on by a police officer. And they'll say "damn this shit sucks, must be the capitalism" when a lot of it just boils down to your neighbors and leaders being bigot pedophile freaks.
Like, you think Communism is so great? Explain Boris Yeltsin. He was a fucking Commie. And look what happened.
Humans are a very mixed bag. But Americans are a special breed of narcissistic, consumerist, sociopaths. And not because of some kind of genetics thing, either. The country attracts these freaks like a magnet.
From Ayn Rand to Wernher von Braun to Benjamin Netanyahu to Elon Musk, the world's worst human beings are drawn to this place. They pilgrimage here and export their awfulness abroad. Or they take root and fester. Either way, America molds them into the worst humans imaginable.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7h
Sure, but cultures and nationalities do this all the time. If you've never experienced being around some Russian on vacation, I promise, Americans aren't the only annoying people out there. Or the English in any part of Western Europe that's a cheap flight away from London. For as self-deprecating as the English seem to be today, there's centuries of colonialism and exploited wealth behind it that can't be ignored, mostly due to the cultural exports that remain. For centuries, if an English or Spanish ship showed up somewhere, everyone else was going to have a bad time, and both groups happily only assumed they were the best there ever was. Cold War efforts to spread the Gospel of America around the world through Hollywood were profoundly successful, and a lot of people bought in.
Which isn't to say that every English or Spanish or Russian or American is bad, more so that under either system, and under every system of government so far, including anarchy, some total shitbags rise to the top. Maybe Spaceballs was right. Maybe Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 1 pts · 19h
Exactly my comment on being a feudalic system. Burgoise aristocrats defeated monarchy and came up with a new story for peasants to worship for.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 18h
They also reorganized labor in a manner that produced significant improvements to overall quality of life.
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 2 pts · 22h
I think you need to be a bit open minded why people are thinking instead telling others how they should be thinking your way.
At this point, there’s no way you’d have “power” unless you have inherited immense wealth or provided with powerful connections. I am in favour of if I have to work, so as others. And generation that’s below boomers, physically impossible to have a relaxed life if they don’t have the conditions that I’ve wrote. it’s because capitalism is always set to “grow”. You need to profit even more compared to last period so you’d be considered as “successful”.
In this world nothing ever grows indefinitely. When it does either eruptions or cancer happens. It’s not natural. If you wanna take two seats you need to kick someone off the seat to take that seat. So billionaires hold most of the money which turns into power. Look - turns out they’re the biggest capitalists in entire human history. I really couldn’t be bothered if I don’t see Coca Cola in my supermarket. Heck I don’t even need a fucking fresh starfruit available all week. So I don’t care about global gdp or bla bla. I live in one those so called “first world countries” yet I’m afraid I’m going to die in a damp cold house when I’m old because I never had been in the class of selected people. Mind you - I’ve got my own house and savings etc. worked my ass off. Yet still the future is not safe. Bank taking everything off your hand when you’re in a tight position (for example; getting redundant) and hospitals chucking you out in the street when you don’t have enough money. Holding your baby after giving birth is a “charged service” in US. This is capitalism not people being “evil”. And this can fuck off.
Anyway, hope you done read this with as an offence. I think you need to grow the way you think.
Chill. Looking down at people is the most illiterate thing that you can do to yourself.
Ps. Mind you, I’ve never praised any other “-ism” over capitalism.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6h
I appreciate your perspective here, and to be fair, I'm open minded as to what sorts of reforms the West needs to be more sustainable. For a while there seemed to be both a sense of decorum and maybe even morals, plus regulations, that help back unfettered pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake. Personally, I think that the tech industry and finance broke that down, and with the bar set to "get it all as fast as you can," the wheels are off the cart for both a system that used to work OK-ish for many people (certainly not all).
Like this - at what point did things work well? It wasn't a long time, historically speaking. I'm guessing based on mention of a damp, cold house you're from the UK or Ireland, and it's really just within our life times that things were working mostly OK for some, and now it's fallen apart. I'm not challenging you on this, I agree. But I'm also wondering if we're going to look to some point in the past when things did work, when was that? A decade or so? A few years? Was it when we were kids and didn't understand the bad stuff going on?
My personal gripe is that "capitalism" simply means that someone with a business takes their profits and re-invests them back into the business. Growth isn't a requirement - it's what large businesses focus on. That re-investment could be better wages for workers, or better health insurance, or nicer desks and chairs and table tennis in the break room. Growth as the goal is a choice. Also, a lot of people focus entirely on a handful of large businesses doing this. Most businesses in the UK AND the US are small businesses. Literally 99.9 % of American businesses are employ less than 50 people. Almost half of Americans work at small businesses, and they're more than half out GDP. So when 0.1% of the businesses are predatory and problematic, but also command 40% of our GDP - it seems like a touchy problem, but a solvable one.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Who needs to understand definitions? Your actions are self-evident and show who you are within the system. In a world where the powerful are scraping coins off of you for more yachts I try my best to help the people and the land. I can do that without knowing economic theory. Even a child can understand that.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Sausage tin angle float turkey sassafras, monkey ancient refractive judgement velocity steamboat.
Which any kid can understand. You're right - what good are definitions, mongoose!
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 23h
Damn! I'm always getting kicked out of the exclusive "smart people" clubs.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 23h
Critical thinking doesn't exist on this platform. The mainstream narratives on Lemmy are built on shaky foundations and can't get past basic scrutiny. It's why the more ideologically zealous have so much censorship. This isn't a left, right, whatever issue. It's an education issue, and it's impact is reflected by every demographic in the nation.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 22h
Marx wrote a whole book on it that you should check out. The primary appeal, as a system, is that it accelerates property and infrastructure development.
Gladaed@feddit.org · 7 pts · 1d
Making politicians even more susceptible to corruption. Great populism. Populism tends to serve the roch after all.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
They only work a few months a year. For example, in USA they are only in session a few days until November, with all of October off.
Have you ever watched them in session? Even when they're "working" it's like 90% dead time, moving at a snail's pace.
What other job pays almost 200K a year, with half of the year off, the very best of health care included, and you can take time off whenever you'd like? Months! ...and that job ensures you'll always be able to out-perform the very best with your "insightful" stock trading?... and you can appoint your husband as the "ambassador of Bermuda", and travel to Bermuda on the taxpayer's dime?
The Democrats are swimming in this shit just like "The Nazis". Just look at them. Revolting trash, the lot.
I vote, you should vote... but never forget, they are contemptuous vipers who will backstab you and everyone standing with you without a second thought. They won't even remember your name.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 1d
Campaigning to keep that job gets more time than the actual job. They consider it part of what we pay them for, which is utter bullshit.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 1d
The whole thing is set up completely wrong in the US. Campaign ads should be prohibited outside of a few weeks before election day. Two year terms are horrible because it means even more campaigning. Revoke citizens united, give both the house and senate 4 year terms and a few other changes to campaign finance laws in particular, and you could have a reasonable congress.
Madison420@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14h
They weren't ever supposed to represent you, they represent rich white men like they were intended. It's literally designed to favor the rich because literally every single one of the signers of the bill of rights was a wealthy dude, to a man they were middle - upper class and in general criminals at that.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
The problem isn't age, it's corruption and entrenchment.
We need term limits for Congress.
schwim@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 1d
I'm not sure where the meme creator got the idea that they represent us.
Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 1d
This seems like it would make a rampant corrupt system even more corrupt. Imagine how cheap you could buy a rep for if they only made 60k on the books.
Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
This is exactly how they got to where they are now. They tell you its to discourage bribing and then take the bribes anyways.
NuanceDemon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Thats not really a flaw in the above, thats just a separate flaw in the political system that also needs addressing.
curiousaur@reddthat.com · 0 pts · 1d
Yes this is exactly the reason they should actually make more than they do.
It would also ensure only people who were already wealthy would pursue it.
3abas@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Do you expect the already wealthy to represent you? To not take bribes and enact laws that benefit them?
curiousaur@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 22h
I think you misunderstood. A salary of 60k, the original proposal, would cause that.
3abas@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 20h
core@leminal.space · 3 pts · 10h
That would further incentivize their corruption
Nurgus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5h
Thry should get a massive salary but be strictly banned from all other forms of income.
horsesaysweird@feddit.org · 2 pts · 3h
I disagree. Everyone believes that people are greedy and their only goal in life is money hoarding. But if you ask them what their own goals are, getting filthy rich has very, very low priority.
If politicians are greedy, that's because 1) to become a politician (in the USA), you already have to be rich, and 2) if politicians are paid lots of money, greedy people want to become politicians.
You don't want to attract greedy assholes to represent you, but that's exactly what you're doing if you pay them too much. The people you do want to be politicians are those who aren't interested in money.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 22h
I want to hire someone who will take over vital aspects of my survival. But I want to do it in a punitive sort of way that makes sure the job will only be taken by people without the education, experience, and talent to demand more.
It's okay to pay politicians. This genuinely is a "pay more, get more" kind of situation, at least up to a reasonable point.
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 16h
70? They shouldnt be electable after 60!
Soup@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15h
Make it 70, but they have to live off the same pensions as everyone else after 60 years old.
Thor_Whale@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 16h
Remember it's not just the Republicans both sides of the aisle got their pockets loaded with bribe money to not change any of the laws. You get Jeffries on national TV crying about the usual Democratic talking points having everyone shake their head and saying not this shit again. Clearly he does not give a fuck about the $40,000 to $80,000 crowd they can eat cake. He wants to help the poor and there's nothing wrong with that but the main priority is helping everybody but don't forget the middle ground which they always do.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 22h
Nobody working for government should get rich.
Almacca@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 1d
Alternatively, give all workers the same benefits politicians get.
atro_city@fedia.io · 1 pts · 1d
I think it would be better to tie it to a multiple of the minimum wage e.g ~3 or something like that. Then people would find it worth running for and they would be incentivised to increase the minimum wage.
But the problem isn't really their pay, IMO, it's what they can do with it. They can buy up shit, invest in companies they collude with to increase their yield, and basically build up their wealth. A #WealthTax would make it much more difficult to do so. They'd have to spend the money and re-inject it into the economy instead of hoarding it like a bunch of geriatric dragons.
DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Then watch none of these fuckers run. This could actually filter a lot of them
altphoto@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 1d
I'm in for this!
nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
$60K is average?
Alexfire@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 20h
Unfortunately that's one issue with too many workers is they want others to have less, like they do, rather than demand that they also deserve more! Take away what's good for all, rather than feel they deserve it too. It's low self-esteem perhaps and many need therapy, but healthcare costs too much and told it's not macho to do so won't. Lots of "self made" copium all around too so they don't want better for all. That's part of how we are here rather than like workers in EU that have benefits they expect as basic, and usa like "oh please some crumbs, sir!" and pretend they're badass and drive home in their giant trucks, they owe more on than their value.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Math and reality failure!
aesthelete@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Let's also start forcing them to work forty hours.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4h
they spend most of thier time "begging' for more money from donors, for thier campaigns.
CobraCommander@quokk.au · 1 pts · 1d
boaratio@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
I just want them to tell me what stocks to buy.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15h
Monkeys paw. They comply, but don't say which stocks they've already bought or are planning to sell.
Cyanova@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 14h
Why are you all so eager to prop up the corpse of a dead system? I genuinely can't make any sense of it.
Hikermick@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 1d
Stupid on so many levels
Bloomcole@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 23h
it's the US worms letting themselves be ruled like that who are sad.
Keep crying about what 'should be'.