I am sick, sick, sick of being asked to donate money to people running for office. From Alaska to Hawaii to Maine, every day some incumbent or would-be incumbent is sending me a request for money. The requests come in various disguises. From surveys, to matching funds, to desperate pleas for a last-minute donation. I get requests on email, by phone, in regular mail and often text messages. I just completed a “survey” and the last question was a hook. “Are you willing to support the causes that you say you believe in?” If so, I am supposed to send a small $3 dollar donation off someplace. I am sick and tired of these click bait requests for money. I get even sicker when I think I have about 50 days more days to put up with these incessant requests for money, more money and ever more money.
John,
I wish I were emailing with a better update but unfortunately, we missed our goal Saturday night.
We needed to raise $75,000 to fight back against the more than $60 million Mitch McConnell and his allies plan to spend to beat us. But even with the support from this team, we still fell short.
There is an irony here as well. The Democrats which I am supporting for this election all agree that we need campaign finance reform. We must get money out of the political process. Too much money is spent on lobbying, advertising, promoting candidates, media, and media consultants. And what is the secret to getting money out of politics. Very Simple My Friend: “Just send me $10 dollars today so I can defeat my greedy opponent.”
A few months ago, my wife and I both received Covid Stimulus checks for $1200 each. When we received these checks, we had been self-quarantining to avoid contagion with anyone who might be harboring the virus. As a result of the virus, we had no place to go. Our auto gas bill was near zero. Our entertainment expenses were zero. Our eating out expenses were zero. We are both semi-retired and I lost some income since I had been doing substitute teaching work which was terminated when the schools all closed. My wife continued her part-time work as a medical coder working from home and her income did not decline. All in all though, we were in a better financial place than we had been in years.
Mark’s 72-hour fundraising deadline ends tomorrow, and I know he could use some help to close the gap, which is why I have to ask:
If you are able, will you make a $50 donation to Mark’s people-powered campaign? He can’t afford to fall short of this goal, not when Mitch McConnell and the NRA are spending millions on ads to defeat him.
When the checks came, we realized that many other people were hurting. Many people needed the money more than we did. We decided to donate the first check of $1200 dollars to six charities at $200 each charity. We sent the money to a variety of charities that we thought worthwhile. Subsequently, we sent another $400 dollars from the second stimulus check to a few other charities. We felt good that we could help others. During this time period, we also received many requests from politicians. We decided that we would not send any money to any politicians until after the primaries were over.
John, with our FEC end-of-quarter deadline approaching, we need to raise $41,000 more by September 30 to show that we can win this election.
It’s going to take a lot, but I know we can do it together. Can you contribute today to help us reach this goal and flip this seat blue?
Several months have gone by. Hundreds of requests for money to support this candidate or that candidate have been received. No exaggeration here either. I get between five and ten requests every day to send money to some would-be politician. Nevertheless, both my wife and I agreed that we would send at least ½ of any further stimulus money received to politicians that we supported. As time has gone by, we realized that: 1). Probably, no further stimulus money would be coming and 2). We needed to send money to candidates that we supported now before it was too late. Any money sent later would come to late to be of any use.
But look, John, this will still be an uphill battle against Lindsey and his massive fundraising war chest.
We need to raise another $40,599 by midnight tomorrow or we won’t be able to compete.
We decided to take six hundred dollars out of our savings and allocate it among the various candidates. Using an approach developed in baseball and called the “Money Ball” approach, we selected candidates based on the following priorities:
- Defeating Trump for the Presidency
- Flipping the U.S. Senate
- Supporting three local candidates that we knew
Our money went as follows:
- $200 to Biden
- $250 dollars to U.S. Senate candidates (5 candidates at $50 dollars each)
- $150 dollars to local candidates (3 candidates at $50 dollars each)
We sent the money directly to each candidate via their website donation buttons. Every candidate now has a prominent place to send money to them via their websites. We decided that if we received any more stimulus money, we would make a second round of donations. If not, this was all the money we were sending. Further pleas, requests, entreaties, appeals, supplications, and petitions for more money would be ignored. Balancing out our concern for a “Better USA” was our concern for many charities which we would like to support but could not since our extra money was now going to the political arena. An arena I might mention that is worse than a bottom less pit. Did you ever wonder where all the campaign money that you give to your candidate goes? Here is one break-down that I found on Wikipedia:
- Grassroots fundraising
- Opposition research
- Consultation
- Advertising
- Canvassing
- Retail politics
- Election promises
- Get out the vote efforts
- Lawn signs
- Attack ads
- Push polls
- Candidate needs
- Campaign manager
- Campaign staff
- Political portals and websites
I have four political lawn signs that I either bought or gave a donation for. One of my signs is a Biden sign. It was stolen about a week ago. I went on line and purchased two more Biden signs. The first one lasted about two weeks. I figure that two more should get me through the election. After the election, they will either be a souvenir or junk depending on which way the voting goes.
Dear John
In a country devoid of national leadership on this public health crisis known as the COVID-19 pandemic, and devoid of a national health system like Medicare for All that would put the interests of the public over those of greedy commercial profiteers… Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) knows we can do better. Please support our efforts with a donation of $20, $10, or $5.
After we sent our money. We received one Thank You letter from the Wisconsin Democratic party but not a single acknowledgement from any single candidate on either a national or local level. What we did receive was at least 5 more requests for money from each of the national candidates. The Biden campaign alone has sent us more than a dozen requests since they received our $200 dollar donation. No Thank You message.
John, the first ballots are being cast right now in North Carolina, so I’m emailing you today to ask you to roll up your sleeves and join Joe and me in the fight for what he so rightly calls “the soul of our nation.” Will you split a $10 donation between our Biden-Harris ticket and Democrats nationwide to give our campaigns the important resources necessary to move the needle?
My wife Karen and I were talking about the aggravation we are both experiencing with all of these daily requests for money. I said I would like to start a “No Money Party”. She remembered an Andrew Greeley book she read. It had a candidate running for office who swore that he would never ask or request money for his campaign. People were so enamored of the idea that he received a great deal of unrequested money. I want to start a No Money Party. No candidates running under my party banner would ever request a single penny from anyone. We might request help in turns of time or volunteering, but we would never request a single penny. Of course, you are saying “How naive. Your candidates would never get elected.” You might be 100% percent right. However, that is not the point.
The point is that all of these people running for office are clueless. They all think or at least act like every USA citizen has a printing press in their basement. They are the most important people in the world. Their getting elected will cure the Covid-19 Pandemic. Their getting elected will end Global Warming. Their getting elected will create an economy like the world has never seen before. Promises, promises, promises and all you have to do to make these promises come true is to send MORE money.
Well friends, Romans, and other countrymen. I am making a promise today. NO MAS. No more money. I am not sending another penny, shilling, drachma, farthing or even an IOU to anyone running for office for the remainder of the 2020 year. If something happens and I am granted another Corona virus stimulus check before the election, my stimulus money will go to help someone get an education or get needed health care. I can’t think of any politician really worth sending another centavo to. Most of them have more money than I will ever see anyway. I am sure they all eat for free someplace on Capital Hill and laugh at the suckers who keep sending them money to get reelected.
If you agree with me, please don’t sent me any money. I will only waste it on buying another bottle of Tequila so that I can forget this election and drown my political sorrows.
The research that purports to explain the Trump phenomenon almost never goes beyond the “Right Wing” narratives for Trumps election. These narratives all point to abortion, guns, taxes, small government, immigration and jobs as the key factors in Trumps victory. Trump blames the Democrats for everything wrong in rural America and the Republicans have provided a compelling set of schemes that have convinced many in rural America that a partial solution to their problems lies in more capitalism. 
A version of this myth is the “Too big too fail idea” widely heard during the “Great Recession” and now during the Coronavirus epidemic. General Motors was one of the first giant corporations in America and even as late as 2019, it was ranked 13th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. In 1952 during his nomination hearing for Secretary of Defense, Charles Wilson (former CEO of General Motors) was asked if he could make a decision as Secretary of Defense that ran contrary to the interests of his former company. He replied with the now infamous remark YES but that he could not conceive of such a situation: “because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” — 
The foregoing belief in the common interests that corporations shared with America came to epitomize the ideology of Corporate America. American corporations then used the media and astute public relations to convince the majority of US citizens that they are indispensable, and that the welfare of the average person depended on the welfare of the corporation. To put it another way, the interests of a giant corporation are claimed to be synonymous with the interests of the average person. “What is good for America’s Corporations is good for You.” “What is good for Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Exxon, Facebook and Pfizer is good for you.”
When a company makes and sells a product, it is no longer responsible for the effects of that product on either the buyer or the environment. Unless evidence can be shown that somehow the corporation either lied or had some kind of criminal intent in the sales process, the consumer and society are responsible for the negative effects that a product or service might have. For instance, oil companies sell gasoline but are not responsible for the effects of polluting the atmosphere by burning gasoline. Another example is the packaging that many companies use for their products. Amazon is notorious for over boxing even the smallest products. The boxes must then be thrown away or recycled in a landfill. However, the cost of this recycling is not born by Amazon but ultimately by the taxpayer who must pay for the recycling through taxes or direct payments. Meanwhile, Amazon makes a great profit by being able to take advantage of tax loopholes and escaping any costs. These costs are called in economic terms: “Externalities.”
Dr. Deming wrote reams about the failure of management to balance what he called the “Problems of Today” with the “Problems of Tomorrow.” I would typically hear when beginning a consulting engagement numerous reasons why “it could not be done.” One of the most common excuses was expressed colloquially as “We are up to our ass in alligators.” Another excuse was “We have too many fires to put out.” I was fond of reciting Dr. Deming’s comment that, “Putting out fires is not improvement. Finding a point out of control, finding the special cause and removing it, is only putting the process back to where it was in the first place. It is not improvement of the process.” — Out of the Crisis, W. E. Deming
I have sat in many boardrooms for many planning meetings, and seldom did I ever hear an executive worrying about the environment or the hidden costs of externalities. The oft assumed legal mandate of a corporation is to make a profit. However, corporate law states that a company does not have to pursue profit maximization at all costs. This is idealistic though since the tendency in the marketplace and short-term thinking push corporations to ignore other considerations and pursue profits at all costs. It is also much easier to measure profits than it is to measure a “good” to the environment or a “good” to the social system. Thus, generally profits will trump other considerations in running an effective business.
Most of what people learn about Marx is far removed from his actual ideas. Given that Capitalism has been diametrically opposed to the very name of Karl Marx, it is not surprising that he is routinely disparaged. Even at the University level, it is rare to find anyone studying Marx very deeply. Many educators and instructors describe Marx’s economic theories as “Totally Discredited.” Few people in America have any good words for Karl Marx. Any politician in the USA who might suggest that Marx ever said one good thing or had one good idea would court instant political death. Marx is the devil in our Capitalistic system.
Marx did of course hate capitalism. He saw Capitalism as a system that exploited workers and allowed the greedy to benefit at the expense of those less fortunate or less aggressive.
The antipathy directed towards Marx and his critique of Capitalism has discouraged any real in-depth understanding of the limits and myths of Capitalism by most Americans. Capitalism resides in America on the same level as Mom, God, and Apple Pie. Woe to anyone who would dare to attack Capitalism. In the United States, Capitalism is as hallowed an institution as Christianity. In fact, most Christians think that Capitalism and religion go hand in hand, which to a large extent they sadly do. Unfortunately, not all Capitalism is the same. In America, we have a home-grown version that is more appropriately called Corporate Capitalism. What is the difference you might ask? Well it gets even more complicated since economists define four types of Capitalism. These are: 
Over the past 40 years, the Supreme Court has radically expanded constitutional rights for corporations. The original charters for corporations written in the late 19th century, allowed corporations powers never before seen in companies. The abuse of these powers soon led to a considerable amount of legislation designed to reign in some of the most egregious of these abuses. Laws such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed in 1890 to stop monopoly practices and the Clayton Antitrust Act passed in 1914 to stop unethical business practices were somewhat successful at ameliorating corporate abuses. Unfortunately, corporations were still left with considerable power to thwart the goals of democracy and good government.
Corporate interests easily dominate the interests of the common person. The common person has nowhere near the financial clout of corporations. In 2010, the Supreme Court passed the Citizens United Decision which gave corporations unlimited power to finance and support political candidates running for office as well as to lobby on behalf of any laws that they wanted. This decision basically upheld the idea that corporations had a right to free speech much like any citizen of the USA and that campaign spending was simply a manifestation of free speech. Corporations are now being treated as living breathing people despite the fact that corporations can live forever, and corporations are not organic entities. They are not born, and they do not die like any other creature on the face of the earth.
One of the most popular movies in the eighties was Wall Street. In the movie, Michael Douglas gave a “Greed is Good” speech which was actually applauded by audiences all over the United States. Some corporations have been sued by stockholders for not being greedy enough.
Aging Capriciously 