WaPo had been doing great reporting these days. I just don't know how much money they lose in ad revenue by being behind paywall. Any summery of the article?
How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
11–20 of 119 posts
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#12Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…
To me it looks like US Congress is dirt cheap. Just few thousand dollars to pass laws that would have massive impact! Top countries spend billions on military and trying to revive their economies. With a tiny fraction of that budget you can buy lots of US politicians legally and easily generate desired effect. The beauty of this whole thing is that everything is legal. Rich folks even made sure you can have unlimited "donations". BTW, this is used to be called bribes and people were used to sent to prison for accepting that.
I can't stop but wondering if there is a startup opportunity here. What if it was possible to create a market to buy and sell politicians which was more efficient? May be we can dress it up little better... How about buy and sell "political cause"? Unlimited money allowed for each auctioning! Each political cause can then have underlying actual politician that gets part of the proceeds via campaign donations but all parties get to remain anonymous. No need to debate gun laws. Who ever is able to beat auction gets their say.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#13WaPo had been doing great reporting these days. I just don't know how much money they lose in ad revenue by being behind paywall. Any summery of the article?
Sorry, if you think they are doing great reporting, isn't it worth to pay for a subscription? It is dirt cheap for Prime members
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#14First, Chinese government has no human rights abuse in Tibet; they developed the area and treat the people well. Second, corruption is everywhere, if there is not China, there will be another country. The election system is not to find the people loyal to voters.
You are going to have massive downvotes and its actually well deserved for once because you are exactly are type of people who needs to be stopped spreading Chinese government propaganda on Tibet. It is pretty well documented what China is doing to Tibet, its people, its natural resources and its culture. Building roads and trains are NOT for Tibetan people. They are there to enable mass migration, putting out massiv…
> They are there to enable mass migration, putting out massive military infrastructures and shuttle the natural resources out of Tibet.
> virtually no differences between British colonization and Chinese occupation of Tibet.
There is one huge difference. The British already successfully got away with it. Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada are the resulting trophies. Almost got South Africa too.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#15WaPo had been doing great reporting these days. I just don't know how much money they lose in ad revenue by being behind paywall. Any summery of the article?
Sorry, if you think they are doing great reporting, isn't it worth to pay for a subscription? It is dirt cheap for Prime members
No it isn't because there are other dozens of such outlets there. I can't buy dozens of subscriptions for everyone doing good reporting. Either they have to come up with some subscription bundle that covers large number of outlets (like Netflix or Google Music) or rely on ad revenues. I just don't know why these people don't think of this and just assume people would just swipe away their credit cards for new subscriptions.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#16WaPo had been doing great reporting these days. I just don't know how much money they lose in ad revenue by being behind paywall. Any summery of the article?
Do you feel that quality journalism should be free to you? Did your parents subscribe to a newspaper when you were growing up? Not sure why one would feel entitled to a work product without compensating the creator for it when it clearly has value to that consumer.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#17Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…
To me it looks like US Congress is dirt cheap. Just few thousand dollars to pass laws that would have massive impact! Top countries spend billions on military and trying to revive their economies. With a tiny fraction of that budget you can buy lots of US politicians legally and easily generate desired effect. The beauty of this whole thing is that everything is legal. Rich folks even made sure you can have unlimited…
I think it only looks dirt cheap if you're looking exclusively at campaign contributions. But the real influence of lobbying comes from managing entire networks of influence surrounding a person. A politician will suddenly know people who can help them manage their money, set their best friend up with investors so they can start their new business, help get their kid into the best school, help them find a lucrative career after politics, etc. I'm sure it's all extremely expensive.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, if you think they are doing great reporting, isn't it worth to pay for a subscription? It is dirt cheap for Prime members
No it isn't because there are other dozens of such outlets there. I can't buy dozens of subscriptions for everyone doing good reporting. Either they have to come up with some subscription bundle that covers large number of outlets (like Netflix or Google Music) or rely on ad revenues. I just don't know why these people don't think of this and just assume people would just swipe away their credit cards for new subscri…
How many newspapers do you need to read in order to be well informed? I subscribe to two newspapers and a magazine. I don’t feel like adding more would give me additional value. Surely you wouldn’t feel the need to read every newspaper in existence to feel well informed. I encourage you to subscribe to one or two that you feel provide a valuable product to you.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#19Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…
Thanks to the Citizen's United decision that Chinese transnational corporation has the same free speech rights to contribute to a political than an individual US citizen has. While a foreign country can't directly give money to a politician its trivial for them to use a cutout corporation to pass money and influence. And since we recognize corporations as people the US subsidiary of the Chinese cutout has full free speech rights and the ability to give effectively unlimited contributions to campaigns.
Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding
#20Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…
> This kind of reminds me how in one of the Wikileak emails, Clinton removed a country from a list of human rights violators for a mere donation.
Could you dig that up so we can see it?