The Revolving Door Phenomenon

The Economist just did a big article on crony capitalism and rent seekers a couple of weeks ago. From that and the above graphic, it's hard to tell where our government starts and the corporations end.

I don't believe that the fact that politicians often become lobbyists for large companies is automatically to be assumed to be a bad thing. It surely does not meet the definition of fascism.

By the same token, I don't have a problem with politicians seeking input from companies regarding the industry they are trying to regulate.

Sure, it looks bad, because we know the potential for corruption is always there. Nevertheless, the process it takes to construct laws, rules, and regulations is very difficult and complicated. I really don't see how it could be done any other way.

The remedy, if any, is to have as open a process as possible. That's one of many reasons why the Obamacare law was so disturbing. That was an extremely large and complicated piece of legislation. Of course, input from various industry leaders and other "thinkers" was necessary to craft such a bill. But the process was clandestine, and even worse, there was an unprecedented acknowledgement that not only did no one know the who or how or why, the politicians didn't even know the what. The now famous line, "you have to pass it to see what's in it'" should make every american very afraid!

That, my friend, is fascism.

There are a LOT more intersections than those listed under 'Media'.

Edit: There are also intersections by marriage. IE, husband works for the White House; wife works for CBS news.