Who they work for?

Sometimes I wonder why when I vote for somebody different I end up getting more of the same. The key to understanding this as best as I can tell is to look at who contributed to whom in the last election cycle. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan, and the US government contributed lots of money to both sides. I guess Goldman Sachs is not satisfied with contributing a bevy of executives right into the US treasury they also feel they need to buy both sides too. In the election cycle before, you could add Bank of America to that list. Who knows what Obama did to piss of BOA?

"They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen." -- Louisiana's Huey Long 1936.

The Democrats has plenty of large university money coming (Harvard, University of California, Columbia) as well as intuitions who have a lot to gain from the whole "supposed education accountability" movement (Microsoft, IBM, Kaplan testing (who is really just the Washington Post) This mean that you could expect little action that would restrict these companies or institutions from getting their hands on the "free" public school dollars. All educators need PDPs (Professional development Points) which is direct money right into the university coffers. Now some universities are even directly taking over school systems look at BU taking over Chelsea's school system (Massachusetts)

The Republican are in hock to just about every financial institution there is . Which leads one to wonder why the Democrats are even sweating the debt ceiling. The banking industry is unlikely to let the US default on the debt ceiling. They'll just bring in their Republican employees and give them a good talking to.

Also contributing to the the Republicans was Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearn. I guess the two bankrupt companies felt obligated to write checks to their political benefactors write to the bitter end. One has the feeling that the people writing those checks might not have been the ones in front of the computer screen who lost their jobs. They just disappeared and will reemerge under another guise. As Don Draper from Mad Men said

Don Draper: "The product is good. It's high quality. Dogs love it, but the name is poisoned."

Client: "That name got us where we are. Do you think that was just luck?"
Don Draper: "I'm not saying a new name is easy to find. And we will give you a lot of options. But it's a label on a can. And it will be true because it will promise the quality of the product that's inside." -- Mad Men, episode 3.11

One man or one woman is cheap: it adds up to just one vote. Money is everything. As long as some of the policies aren't too odorous, you can flood the airwaves with endless BS to dupe the voters and keep the same unchanging system in place.


From Open Secrets website:

Democrats Obama’s leading contributors

University of California	$1,591,395
Goldman Sachs	$994,795
Harvard University	$854,747
Microsoft Corp	$833,617
Google Inc	$803,436
Citigroup Inc	$701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$695,132
Time Warner	$590,084
Sidley Austin LLP	$588,598
Stanford University	$586,557
National Amusements Inc	$551,683
UBS AG	$543,219
Wilmerhale Llp	$542,618
Skadden, Arps et al	$530,839
IBM Corp	$528,822
Columbia University	$528,302
Morgan Stanley	$514,881
General Electric	$499,130
US Government	$494,820
Latham & Watkins	$493,835
Republican McCain’s leading contributors Merrill Lynch $373,595 Citigroup Inc $322,051 Morgan Stanley $273,452 Goldman Sachs $230,095 JPMorgan Chase & Co $228,107 US Government $208,379 AT&T Inc $201,438 Wachovia Corp $195,063 UBS AG $192,493 Credit Suisse Group $183,353 PricewaterhouseCoopers $167,900 US Army $167,820 Bank of America $166,026 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $159,596 Blank Rome LLP $154,226 Greenberg Traurig LLP $146,437 US Dept of Defense $144,105 FedEx Corp $131,974 Bear Stearns $117,498 Lehman Brothers $114,357 Democrat Kerry Presidential Contributors 2004 University of California $622,925 Harvard University $355,359 Time Warner $305,824 Goldman Sachs $303,250 Citigroup Inc $288,631 Microsoft Corp $278,597 Skadden, Arpset al $264,077 US Government $229,976 UBS Americas $219,700 JP Morgan Chase & Co $207,065 DLA Piper Rudnick et al $204,353 Wilmer, Cutler et al $203,386 Stanford University $195,899 IBM Corp $189,390 Viacom Inc $182,996 Morgan Stanley $180,979 Robins, Kaplan et al $177,650 Columbia University $175,592 Bank of America $169,502 General Electric $159,031 Republican Bush Presidential Contributors 2004 Morgan Stanley $600,480 Merrill Lynch $580,004 PricewaterhouseCoopers $513,750 UBS Americas $472,075 Goldman Sachs $390,600 MBNA Corp $356,350 Credit Suisse Group $331,040 Lehman Brothers $329,725 Citigroup Inc $320,620 Bear Stearns $309,150 Ernst & Young $305,140 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu $290,450 US Government $287,636 Wachovia Corp $275,310 Ameriquest Capital $250,650 Blank Rome LLP $223,900 Bank of America $218,261 AT&T Inc $212,920 Cendant Corp $207,443 JP Morgan Chase & Co $205,900