One question in Citizens United v. FEC was "what constitutes a campaign contribution?" Michael Moore had just made an anti Bush film, and decided to personally pay to run ads for his film just before an election. The ruling was basically that Michael Moore had just made a campaign contribution. That is, if David Koch's PAC had made a documentary about Obama's birth certificate and ran a bunch of ads for just before the election, that's effectively giving a campaign contribution as well.

Whether the campaign spent the money, or someone spent the money on behalf of the campaign, it didn't matter. An ad is an ad, and ads cost money. However, if you extend this logic, nobody can produce any positive or negative media about a candidate during the election run-up. That is, the NYT couldn't run a photo of Barry O smiling on the front page. That sort of exposure has value, and would thus constitute a contribution. Otherwise, what would stop me from producing a huge pile of fliers with smiling candidates on them and dropping them from my helicopters?

This is how we end up running up against free speech. Personally, I don't think we should put those kinds of restrictions on media. People will always play games, and find ways of couching themselves as other forms of protected media in order to keep funneling huge sums of money into biased political messages. That's just how it works. But I'm not comfortable limiting political speech, least of all around an election run up. The risk for unintended consequences is too high.

I'm actually torn on Citizens United these days. The issue is with carefully defining terms. For example, how do we define campaign contributions? If the New York Times runs an op-ed endorsing a candidate, is that a contribution? If Michael Moore makes a film favorable to one candidate or another, is that a contribution? (hint... hint) Nobody likes the Kochs, but how do you sort out one from the other? What if the rich guys just decide to go buy newspapers instead? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/business/media/the-return-of-the-newspaper-barons.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I disagree that the first step is the hardest. It'll get one hell of a lot harder when the Koch's start getting spooked and beginning dumping hundreds of millions into campaigns against it.

[edited to correct the scale of money]

up-vote for satanic larynx and reflex-fear of Koch

Just because this is associated with Koch doesn't mean it's wrong. It is a simplification though. Changes to the legal code which saw enforcement of property rights were critical. Without the scientific advances of the industrial revolution, these gains in efficiency and wealth couldn't have been achieved and a disproportionate proportion of the population would have had to remain in agriculture. Among other things I'm forgetting.

This video = liberty.org = Institute for Humane Studies = chaired by Charles G. Koch

He's always interesting to listen to, but I still can't see any way this can possibly work. It's too easy for the Kochs and Waltons to continue to buy the legislators, even those who have "committed" to his cause. Which means it will have to be done over, and over, and over. While the corporate media and astro-turfed blogosphere pour out a flood of propaganda against it.

It's a nice dream, but that's all it is. The only way to change the path we're on involves rivers of blood, I'm afraid.

Since the Republicans invented the Individual Mandate, tried twice under Bush Sr and once under Clinton to force what would eventually become Obamacare into National Law, I don't know why they are against it. They should be glad their plan passed and not any of the two plans Democrats actually wanted. It was funded the same way Obamacare is. The only real changes is that insurance companies can't deny or charge more for pre-existing conditions, and it went from catastrophic care to comprehensive care, so we treat people before they need major services. Otherwise basically the same thing. It was those plans that Romneycare was based on.

What the Democrats have long wanted, and what the American people deserve is the Single Payer that works so well for every other civilized nation in the world. What Obama promised was a Government Option which is a compromise between the massive for profit insurance that we have now, and a Single Payer. Then massive amounts of Republican's following what they were being sold by Fox News and the Koch brother's massive Tea Party movement, convinced the Repbulican base to ignore what their so called Christ said, to help the needy and poor and heal the sick, to "let them die!" And a massive opposition grew. So the Democrats fearing they couldn't go to the point of actually helping the millions of Americans working for companies that refuse to offer affordable health care and not paying a living wage for the benefit of the executives and shareholders, went with the Republican designed Individual Mandate.

What the Republicans should be doing is celebrating the fact that the Democrats couldn't (or more like wouldn't) pass either of the two plans they wanted, and in the end passed and adapted the Republican plan. They should be proud that Obamacare is basically Romneycare at the National level and be bashing Democrats for blocking it back when they tried to pass it under Bush Sr and Clinton. The Republicans should be saying, "we told you so a long time ago this was the way to go, and because of Democrats blocking it, we didn't get it until we forced Obama and the Democrats to give in and accept our plan. You American's could have had this over 20 years ago, but the Democrats refused. This is a victory for Americans and the Republican party that they finally relented and let our plan pass." Instead we get them shouting "let them die", because that's what the modern Christian Republicans think, that we are better off letting the poor people who work for these giant companies should die rather than let their tax dollars help them.

You post a video about one of the fucking Koch brothers being taken to task for calling people an innocuous word I will heartily destroy it. However whenever I see something about the Koch brothers it's less about what they've been saying and more about the shit they've been funding.

They're not even the point, the point is that RICH FUCKS fund politicians and fuck us over. The Kochs just so happen to fund a lot of bad shit so they've become a real target.

For all your ranting about "The First Lady is subjected to this shit and she wasn't even elected," @Yogi, the same can be said of Tom Perkins, and David and Charles Koch, and the many many others who aren't elected and yet they're subjected to all kinds of attacks and sleights for what they say or don't say on or off the record.

In this instance, Michelle went on national TV for political purposes and she said something stupid, if not downright condescending or truly insulting, and she got backlash.

So chill out dude, don't stress out over this... live up to your "yogi" namesake, (unless, of course, you're trying to be more like Yogi Bear.. in which case, get the FUCK away from my "pic-a-nic basket!").

Everything you've written is wrong.
What happened to the last ice age
The effect of the sun

And you're damn right consensus is not science. So when you and your idiot denier mates all gang together to see who can shout the loudest, it doesn't make a goddamn gram of difference to the science.

Meanwhile, science is peer review. Note that word "peer". That means that the science is reviewed by other experts in the field. Not by you, me, fox news, greenpeace or the koch brothers. And the people who understand the science? They all agree with it.

First things first: I read the article you linked as well as three others by the same author, given that he's teaching at a nearby facility. His article "The Three Types of Austerity" was quite enough to know that I'll never see eye-to-eye with him, or anyone of the same views.

"[Austerity] frees up resources for private investment" is a statement that does not match my perception of reality, given the absolute abundance of (financial) resources within the eurozone. It's a lack of demand for investments that's the problem, not supply. Savings are at record highs, investment is at an all-time low.

So, demand vs supply... we all know that discussion won't be resolved here, ever. It's utterly pointless. Same for the gold standard vs fiat, inflation good or bad, or any related discussion, really.

Instead, I'll try to reply to unrelated statements.

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"Do you think The Wire paid for their production assistants' healthcare? Did they make more than the $50/day for their 12 hour days (if they weren't working for free as "interns" for the 'privilege' of 'paying their dues' in 'the industry')?"

I know nothing about the situation on set of The Wire. My assumption is that it involved the regular amount of abuse of labour, including unpaid interns.

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"Haha, of course, "liberals" get a pass from other "liberals", but no pass for the Kochtopus (even though the Kochs give way more money to charities than The Wire would even be able to)."

Well, good for them. But I don't see why you drag them in here. You made a set of rhetoric questions aimed at hypocrisy by David Simon. I pointed out my view that any possible hypocrisy is dwarfed by the point he made vis-a-vis guilt/Perkins/watch/whatever.

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"Yeah? Like you know (the other) David Simon and can vouch for his "lack of guilt?" And "guilt" about what? Having money? Being successful?"

Feeling guilty about the discussion amongst the establishment regarding, for instance, the minimum wage. He finds it questionable how one can argue against giving a fella at Burger King 10-12 bucks an hour without feeling guilty for it. That's the disconnect we're talking about. When extremely wealthy individuals deny even the crumbs to the folks at the bottom.

Shamelessness was my addition, my interpretation. It was aimed at the demand for tax breaks and subsidies for extremely profitable corporations or extremely wealthy individuals. I would feel ashamed for any demands to my benefit if a) I didn't objectively need them and b) they would come at a detriment to others in worse situations than me.

Since I'm arguing from a different economic perspective than you, a shortfall in tax income (aka tax breaks) to me means either more taxes at another place, probably from weaker entitities who can't afford to buy their own representative, or a cut in essential services. I operate under a very broad definition of human dignity and see it as the first and foremost objective. Food, shelter, health, etc for all -- which might just be a reason why some people refer to me as a "pinko commie".

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"Does he? Really? How? And how are you doing more for "society" than that? Who are you and what exactly is your great "contribution" to society?"

He "weakens" society, economically, by suppressing aggregate demand. The more wealth you accumulate, the less of it, as a percentage, translates into demand. For an economy that depends on the circulation of goods and services, a massive and non-temporary accumulation of debt or savings (same coin, different sides) in the hands of single players (be it state, corporation or individual) chokes up the system. Less demand, less investment, less growth.
Accumulation is all fine and dandy if it translates into economic activity, but given the pathetic % of GDP that is being invested, despite mountains of unused cash that are forced into financial shenanigans looking for profit, I'd say it is dead weight and a drag.

But since you apparently share the views of Hollenbeck, all of that was probably hogwash to you.

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To answer your question: a human being and my great contribution to society is my charming personality, of course.

And with that, I bid you adieu. I've had long-ass discussions about Snowden/surveillance and other topics that led nowhere and I'm not interested in having one about economic theory, especially not in a second language. The floor is all yours, including the last word.

It wasn't me who first pointed out Simon as a hypocritical "liberal bully."

"Here’s why I assert Simon is a bully. His own words reveal him to be a petty, nasty, mean-spirited guy. “…anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were [bleeped] up, wrong, and that I was the [bleeping] center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.""

Statist narcissism.

There's as much as you'd like on this. How about...?

"David Simon, a multi-millionaire writer for Time-Warner, one of the largest corporations in the world and a cultural leader, jetted across the globe to speak in front an audience of people with both the financial means and free time about the horrors of “unchecked” capitalism and the tragic loss of the social compact."

"It is rich that a leading light of Hollywood, that of unpaid interns, unmatched inequality of pay, tax-avoidance schemes, exploitation of public subsidies, industry scheming, etc., would criticize a “broken social compact.”"

"Meanwhile, in the real world of unchecked, no-social-compact capitalism, the WSJ is reporting that the “Burger Wars” are expanding to Africa. The heartless capitalist system is stepping in where communism, socialism and other authoritarian systems have failed, bringing with it the digging of new wells, food production systems, jobs, etc. All that awful stuff that comfortable capitalists take for granted."

EDIT: To be clear, I have no specific interest in advocating for Koch, or Simon, or whomever, or in prosecuting them or @radx or anyone else. But I do think this kind of pernicious thinking/bullying can and does spread and causes much harm, even to those engaging in the thinking/bullying, it distorts them in an undesirable way, so I point it out.

Do you think The Wire paid for their production assistants' healthcare? Did they make more than the $50/day for their 12 hour days (if they weren't working for free as "interns" for the 'privilege' of 'paying their dues' in 'the industry')?

Haha, of course, "liberals" get a pass from other "liberals", but no pass for the Kochtopus (even though the Kochs give way more money to charities than The Wire would even be able to). Plus, The Wire gets a PR benefit that they need in order to film in Baltimore in the first place so I assure you that their reasons aren't purely altruistic.

"but they continuously ran charity after charity, on top of the money the production poured into the local economy."

How does this top Koch? Or the Waltons? Or, the other David Simon? Or Perkins. Are you keeping track of who contributes to what or not and how much?

How is one David Simon "contributing" more than the other one?
And why should he get a hypocrisy "free pass?" (Especially when this hypocrisy amounts to just another PR stunt.)

"His point about a lack of guilt, the shamelessness on part of two mentioned individuals, still stands though."

Yeah? Like you know (the other) David Simon and can vouch for his "lack of guilt?" And "guilt" about what? Having money? Being successful?

"So if a privileged individual actively weakens society to further increase his own wealth"

Does he? Really? How? And how are you doing more for "society" than that? Who are you and what exactly is your great "contribution" to society?

Since the 'inequality' hobgoblin keeps making appearances, this article may help put that to rest.

Two main causes of inequality: profit (good) and central bank currency inflation (bad). When you (or anyone else) profit, you increase income 'inequality', in a good way. When central banks inflate currency, they create income 'inequality,' in a bad way. Let's not conflate one with the other. And anyone so misinformed as to ignore central banks as the overwhelming source of undesirable income inequality cannot really contribute much to the debate or to providing solutions. All other remedial measures that ignore the main cause will not only fail but create countless new problems.