POLITICIANS CONT'D
Lies
As your representatives, they must appear to be listening to you and also their message must appear appealing and satisfying. They must act as if they were genuinely interested in your wishes and desires while at the same time ignoring you or (more likely) acting against you or your interests.
Furthermore, they must appear to be satisfying the demands from their represented people, while at the same time doing whatever they wish. Worse, even if they would genuinely wish to satisfy your needs, they would be unable to do it. This is so because of lack of resources and the incompatibility of most wishes and desires.
For example, there simply aren’t enough resources to provide free housing for everybody. The USSR tried it and failed miserably. This is simply impossible.
Another example, to remove speed limits on national highways. This is also impossible simply because they are opinions in favor as well as against.
What is the solution then? Simple: lies. This is quite a practical solution since it enables them to tell their voters what they want to hear, no matter how physically impossible or contradictory their desires may be.
Politicians’ job description clearly states: need to lie.
In the end, the politician who lies the best, wins; and they know it. This is yet another powerful reason why we despise them. They knowingly go into a so-called profession requiring from them to lie all the time and to all people; and they do this with gusto and proficiency. How much more despicable can a person get?
Robbery
Politicians’ lifeblood is money. Without massive amounts of it, they will be voted out and substituted by the next political leach. This would be catastrophic to their job security, so they take all matters of precautions to rob you of as much money as possible.
They use all kinds of taxes. We have explained this in the lesson Taxes And Myths. This Progressive taxation is the one most publicized because it enables them to seem fair and extract the maximum amount of money from the suckers… this is … voters. However, this is not their preferred one. Voters are not completely stupid. If a politician is perceived as increasing taxes, eventually they will vote this person out. Therefore, politicians prefer hidden and un-accountable taxes, such as Consumption and Inflation taxes. Some politicians prefer taxing at source using Proportional taxation since they can push beyond what the Laffer curve would allow (see the lesson The Sweet Spot Of Taxation).
They use all kinds of borrowing and money counterfeiting (i.e. printing) strategies; strategies which will shackle future generations and provide no lasting economic improvements. We have seen this in the lesson Deficits Debts And Inflation.
All this robbing and more is done in your name and without your consent! Furthermore, chances are very good you won’t see any benefit at all.
Politicians’ job description clearly states: need to steal.
This is yet another powerful reason why we despise politicians. Their job is the only job on earth where they can steal and rob to their hearths contempt and it is all perfectly legal! They even have their own organization to support this racket, paid and armed by your money!
Vote buying
If money is politicians’ lifeblood, votes are the ticket. Politicians are vote maximizers. Any decision they make is either driven or related to its own maximization of votes. Without votes, politicians have no job. So, for a politician, the acquisition of votes is job #1 and screw quality of life.
The most efficient way to maximize voters is by spending money. Hence, the previous point addressed how politicians rob money to pay for their votes.
Now we need to discussed the economics of vote arbitraging.
Arbitrage is a valid trading technique, which is based on a simple principle: buy low and sell high, almost at the same time. If market A sells a good cheap but market B buys it expensive and B does not know that A exists, you could make a profit by buying from A and selling to B. Arbitrage is important since it makes markets efficient.
However, not in the way politicians use it. Politicians do vote-purchasing arbitrage. In other words, they sell a few votes for large amounts of money and with this money they purchase a large amount of cheap votes.
How do they do this? Through the magic of taxation, particularly Progressive taxation. They steal money from rich people, people that have very few votes and they would not vote for them anyways. They take this money and spend it in “social” services for the “needy”. Since these “needy” happen to require very little, they can satisfy a large number of voters… er… “poor” people. In this manner, politicians sell high and buy low. The difference is in the quantity.
This is the principal method (other than lies) by which politicians “acquire” votes.
Politicians’ job description clearly states: need to buy votes.
This is yet another powerful reason why we despise politicians. They use your own money against you. This is the very same money that keeps them in power and you subjugated.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
Continue to Lesson #128 - Politicians and Bureaucrats: Job Security Through Misery - Part 3
