Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#31

Post by ratelimitsteve »

lapcat wrote: post #2

> "It's part and parcel to a system that fully embraces free speech," said Tom Garrett, a vice president at the Institute for Free Speech. "All Americans have the right to express themselves and exercise their right to political speech to the fullest extent possible." Corporations are people, my friend.

Corporations are only people when it comes to rights and profits. When it comes to responsibilities they revert to being nebulous entities whose behaviors are emergent phenomena that no one can actually be held accountable for. Or, to borrow the old maxim, "Corporations aren't people until Texas executes one."

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#32

Post by ksbd-pls-finish »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #26
mynameisbilly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The passing of Dolly Parton has really had me thinking how much good these unfathomably rich people and corporations could do. It enrages me to think of how many people $106 million could have helped.

What's really interesting is when you look at how much good they could do without ever actually affecting their lifestyle at all. What actually is $100 million to a trillionaire? What could he do with 1,000,000,000,000 that he can't do with 999,900,000,000?

The problem with this logic is that it equally applies to someone who owns 999,900,000,000.

If someone is willing to spend money above some spendable threshold, then they will never become a trillionaire. Because they will start giving away sooner.

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#33

Post by goatlover »

elevation wrote: post #25
k310 wrote: post #15

"Citizens United" turned "one man, one vote" into "one dollar, one vote" It must be overturned. It was a bogus ruling.

> It must be overturned. It was a bogus ruling. Don't I have a right to buy a $10 yard sign? A $100 bard sign? A $1000 billboard? A $10K radio ad? A $50K book printing? Why should I lose any of these rights because I join with others to help me afford it?

You shouldn't have the right to spend disproportionately more on influencing an election than other people. That's not democratic. It very much favors the interests of the extremely wealthy.

What would be most democratic is if tax money funded campaigns. Every candidate gets the same amount for that office. Take money out of the equation. It should not be a reason someone gets elected. That's corrupting and makes candidates beholden to monied interests.

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#34

Post by bluefirebrand »

ksbd-pls-finish wrote: post #32
ratelimitsteve wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really interesting is when you look at how much good they could do without ever actually affecting their lifestyle at all. What actually is $100 million to a trillionaire? What could he do with 1,000,000,000,000 that he can't do with 999,900,000,000?

The problem with this logic is that it equally applies to someone who owns 999,900,000,000. If someone is willing to spend money above some spendable threshold, then they will never become a trillionaire. Because they will start giving away sooner.

> then they will never become a trillionaire

Good!! No one needs or deserves to be a trillionaire!

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#35

Post by quickthrowman »

triceratops wrote: post #11
lapcat wrote: post #2

> "It's part and parcel to a system that fully embraces free speech," said Tom Garrett, a vice president at the Institute for Free Speech. "All Americans have the right to express themselves and exercise their right to political speech to the fullest extent possible." Corporations are people, my friend.

> Corporations are people, my friend. Then maybe we should start taxing them like people... File the 1040 take only the standard deduction no matter your income. Revenue, not profit, is your income. Etc.

> Revenue, not profit, is your income.

If this was implemented, it would destroy almost all companies. Grocery store net profit margins are 2-4%, if they sell $1B and make $40M and you tax them on 25% of $1B, their loss for the year would be $210M.

Apple and NVidia might survive, but any company with profit margins less than 25% or so would lose money simply by operating.

Liquidating everything or selling the business outright is the only move if you lose money by operating your business, only everyone else is trying to liquidate their assets since operating a business is guaranteed to lose money so there are no buyers.

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#36

Post by triceratops »

quickthrowman wrote: post #35
triceratops wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations are people, my friend. Then maybe we should start taxing them like people... File the 1040 take only the standard deduction no matter your income. Revenue, not profit, is your income. Etc.

> Revenue, not profit, is your income. If this was implemented, it would destroy almost all companies. Grocery store net profit margins are 2-4%, if they sell $1B and make $40M and you tax them on 25% of $1B, their loss for the year would be $210M. Apple and NVidia might survive, but any company with profit margins less than 25% or so would lose money simply by operating. Liquidating everything or selling the busines…

I agree. So stop treating corporations like people. It doesn't make any sense.

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#37

Post by insane_dreamer »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #5
lapcat wrote: post #2

> "It's part and parcel to a system that fully embraces free speech," said Tom Garrett, a vice president at the Institute for Free Speech. "All Americans have the right to express themselves and exercise their right to political speech to the fullest extent possible." Corporations are people, my friend.

Citizens United is possibly the worst SCOTUS decision ever, on par with Dred Scott and Plessy v Fergeson. Abomination.

maybe the downvotes should instead state their arguments as to why Citizens United is a good idea

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#38

Post by insane_dreamer »

convolvatron wrote: post #18
insane_dreamer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens United is possibly the worst SCOTUS decision ever, on par with Dred Scott and Plessy v Fergeson. Abomination.

I think the idea that we should also be able to hide our large donations started here, but got reenforced by later decisions. ok, it's your money, you get to send it to whoever you like. but you shouldn't be able to hide. companies shouldn't act as cover for their owners, and if a candidate is largely propped up by the billionaire class then shouldn't voters at least be aware? shouldn't we be allowed to connect the d…

the problem is that CU is a way for rich people to get around the limits on individual political contributions (which were designed to prevent the rich from having a lot more influence than regular citizens over the voting process)

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#39

Post by [deleted] »

quickthrowman wrote: post #35
triceratops wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations are people, my friend. Then maybe we should start taxing them like people... File the 1040 take only the standard deduction no matter your income. Revenue, not profit, is your income. Etc.

> Revenue, not profit, is your income. If this was implemented, it would destroy almost all companies. Grocery store net profit margins are 2-4%, if they sell $1B and make $40M and you tax them on 25% of $1B, their loss for the year would be $210M. Apple and NVidia might survive, but any company with profit margins less than 25% or so would lose money simply by operating. Liquidating everything or selling the busines…

[deleted]

Re: Corporate political donations shatter record at $646M so far for US midterms

#40

Post by dinfinity »

einszwei wrote: post #14

Article says that there is an increase of 40% from 2024 to 2026 for political donations. Interestingly, the NASDAQ over the same time has also grown 40%.

> Interestingly, the NASDAQ over the same time has also grown 40%.

There is an argument to be made that quantitative easing produces more asset-price inflation than consumer-price inflation in economies where wealth is concentrated at the top (and the new money also mostly goes there).

That could help explain why the massive QE programs after 2008 in both the US and Europe coincided with unexpectedly low consumer-price inflation but large increases in stock, bond, and property prices.

In a way, stocks and property are just consumer products for (relatively) rich people.

Post reply on HN