Adumbration

I had written previously on the topic of how social justice is not served by institutional corruption, which reminded me of these two related episodes from This American Life and from Planet Money, both about the nature of money in politics.

Of course there is a lot of money poured into politics - there's a huge amount of power concentrated in very few hands, so it should not be surprising that people with something to gain are going to spend some money making the rules just slightly in their favor.  The rest of us see pennies of penalty in the short term, while the beneficiaries rake it in.  Whose interest is it to pay attention to these matters, and who would rather just do things at home?  The question answers itself, but what I find amazing is the expectation that it can be any different, given that concentration of power that begins the cycle.  This is part of why I'm for much smaller government.