Blaming politicians

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In the European debt crisis and in the US there is widespread blaming of the whole thing on bankers and politicians. While there is no doubt that banks carry their fair share of blame, for giving people loans they couldn't afford, for helping countries conceal their actual financial status, for creating financial weapons of mass destruction, for over-leveraging to increase returns and so on.

Politicians carry the blame for not regulating the financial system properly, for creating loopholes, for not having sufficient integrity to represent the interest of their voters, for gutting the regulatory system and so on. However, the difference between the two is that one is employed by a private company and was doing what that private company wanted him or her to do to best serve the interest of the company, the shareholders and management. If and when it came out that a person had not represented the best interest of the shareholders, the company and management, they were let go.

In the case of the politicians, many of them are still doing the same thing they have been doing for years, without sufficient outrage or sanctions from the voters.

So, I suppose my question and the focus of this topic is, should voters to a greater extent have to accept that their poor decisions in the voting booths result in negative consequences for them? Secondly, how high can the expectations on the knowledge and experience of the average voter be?

this is definately one of the more interesting debates on PPR lately, kudos and thank you.

you raise some very good questions, in that light what i am about to say is exploratory speculation more than an actual opinion.

inoring the vital point of voter experience and shared responsibility(something that is a neccesity for a democracy to function properly)
i think part of the problem is that we have created a vested interest for the politician to remain in office where i think previously the focus was what change one could impart while there, this leads politicians to come with empty or quasi empty promises to stay in office with the full knowledge that none is meant in earnest.

to my knowledge we have no way of combating this trend, so when we then regard the responsibility of the voters we can suddenly call into question the accuracy of our current shared responsiblity.
the degree to which this can be said will vary wildly depending on other factors, country, form of democracy, active stresses in the society (immigration, cultural strife, crime).

all of this is only a part of it however, im sure there are plenty of different factors and i havent even touched the issue of voter competence.

Very interesting thread TM I like it

This is a big part of the problem, but one that can really only be dealt with by enforcing term limits such as limiting the time a person can spend in office before that person has to go back into a "normal" job. Let's say 2 periods, then at least 1 period out of office. However, this does rob the country of potentially experienced and valuable politicians that aren't your standard "promise-maker".

Never was for a private companys. But I would love to work in Europe if I leave the US.

It's because in the US voters are all caught up in abstract ideological divides and culture battles that have very little to do with the practical functionality of our capitalist society. Instead of solving real world problems, our elected officials stage battles over whether government should fund contraceptives or legally recognize same-sex marriage. We have politicians proposing constitutional amendments to ban flag desecration and gay marriage. Also, when it comes down to it, tribalistic imagery and rhetorical cliche's are more important to our voters than practical policy solutions.

It's not just a US issue though, Greece is a prime example of a country where voters kept New Democracy and PASOK in power for decades, while both parties ran a "spend as fast as you can promise" policy, however now that the bill collector came, they want to strangle the representatives from both parties.

Don't for get about Spain.

its not only singular parties or presidents but entire generations of purposebred politicans with little want of ever leaving that job.
we have some politicians that have been a stable part of our political system for decades, some cause more touble than they are worth and others simply allow trouble to be created.

unfortunately i think you are right in your worries about losing experienced politicians, would it be possible to implement an enforced promise system??
perhaps move promsies form a single representative directly to the ministers in question could help as well?

IMO the blame trickles down to the Media. Why is the public so poorly informed? Because our media is a total circus. People trying to following the talking heads are confused by what is mostly rhetoric with little substance. Or our 24 Cable News fills time arguing over social issues, scandals, or the random kidnapping/murder of the month story.

True there is some responsibility on the voter and we should all try to educate ourselves, but many people that are busy just getting by paycheck to paycheck. Also beyond that we are mired in a 2 party system that is a turn off to a lot of people. This same 2 party system is so entrenched they've hijacked the presidential debates. Ever since Perot they've worked together to pushout independents and 3rd parties. They even threatened Nader with arrest when he showed up outside a Presidential debate.

So I do think ample blame goes to the 2 party system and a complicit media that does lazy journalism.

We already have a system for getting rid of people who break promises, but when people go an vote for the same person, regardless of if they did what they promised or the exact opposite it doesn't work. It's a bit better in parts of Europe where representatives must vote in accordance with their party, IE if David Cameron and his cabinet wants to vote in favor of something, every labour representative has to vote with them.

actually what i was proposing was a concept of binding promises, a penalty system if you will.
dunno if the concept is even workable as often it isnt direct breaks of a promise simply inaction.

Hmm, we could bring back the pillory

There could be one on capitol hill where politicians who broke promises had to stand in it and have tomatoes thrown at them. Alternatively a dunk tank would also work along with banning the person from running again.

I've seen that suggested before and I approve of it completely!

About term limitations: I don't see how we can ever have an efficient congress without it but they'll never vote themselves out of cushy jobs.

Greece is different. The true numbers were largely hidden from the voters. You also can't diminish the way the global financial crisis compounded the issue.

This is what sucks about, democracy. I AM NOT saying their is a better alternative so lets leave that.
"everything is fine today that is our illusion" voltaire pretty much sums up the state of play at current.
Democracy is failing because people can vote in their entitlements.
Politicians know they can win elections by promising handouts at every turn, to not offer handouts would not win an election.
We have a massive budget deficit, debt is mounting, yet people don't care, we have this selfish principle of me me me.
We can see the effects of this in greece, we can see what happens when spending gets out of line.

Yet people don't care because all they think is me me me, politicians are very selfish too because all they want is the top job for as long as possible, some sort of ego trip + cash, they lie and cheat to the top, but they have to give the electorate what they want which is more and more handouts, we will end up in disaster all the handwork gaining social equality will be undone because we will have to reign in some programmes.
in a democracy people will just keeping for "the best for them" without even realising the consequences further down the road, all the warning signs are there, but no politician is going to run on the ticket of hey guys no more iPads I'm afraid, its time we all got jobs. Their is also an arrogance of the self, in the fact we think we are exceptional, we think "if i smoke all my life, i won't get lung cancer its only other people" or that we are not all lazy ouzo drinking greeks. Its ridiculous people are going to continuously vote in people who promise them the world and offer them the world with future promises until one day comes along and it will. If i promised to give everyone a billion dollars, it would be instant downing street for me. people vote for the best deal for themselves.

however one day will come, where some new fresh college kid gets into working at s&p, with maybe a little bit of an aspie twist, who doesn't see the world like everyone else. He'll sit down at his desk with his starbucks coffee, look into that monitor and say, why do the us and uk have such high credit ratings when they are so indebted have deficits and cannot feasibly pay back without devaluation, he will go through the numbers again and voila, he'll think these bonds are worthless, he'll tell a colleague the colleague will run the numbers and see the same thing, then the illusion will be shattered, we will be greece, then all hell will break loose, the people that voted in the politicians for promises of beautiful pensions and good wages will find, that there are no beautiful pensions waiting anymore, intact their is nothing, because we kept voting in people who would spend more and more instead of spending time to do the unpopular thing and fix the budget. The politicians will be blamed and held accountable, but we the electorate won't be able to handle the fact that collectively we have all been so stupid in voting for our short term interest we have lost sight of the long term goal and killed it simultaneously. They have to accept that they have brought this about, it can't be any other way.

The answer to this is more transparency, we need that, we need people to be educated properly in school and for debates to be more serious not titilation and sound bites.