IF WE'RE ALL BROKE, WHO'S FUNDING THE POLITICS?

Granted the economy is not in the best of shape. An anemic recovery might be the most accurate way to describe the last few years. But Mr. Mitt and Republicans contend we are in dire straits. If that is the case, who is providing all this money that is going into political ads and campaigns?

Put another way, if things are as bad as Mr. Mitt makes them out to be, wouldn't political ads and political campaigns be nonexistent because no one would have the discretionary money to contribute to their creation and operation? Okay, so that's a very simplistic way to look at the complexity of a modern Information Age economy. But what seems to be a fact is that people with a lot of money are putting some of it toward convincing those with much less money to vote in certain ways.

Are the people providing the discretionary money motivated by altruism or self-interest? Most are probably along a spectrum stretching from pure altruism at one extreme to pure self-interest at the other. The tempting generalization is that rich Democrats and liberals are mostly along the altruism portion of the spectrum, and rich Republicans and conservatives are mostly along the self-interest portion of the spectrum.

Let's abruptly segue into a related−in a big picture sort of way−topic: job creation. The underlying economic problem is that at the moment, there aren't enough jobs for everyone who wants (and needs) to work. In other words, the demand for jobs is greater than the supply. Why is that so? The arguments in the political arena are centered on such matters as tax policies, government regulations, foreign competition (read China), and the like.

But a Luddite of the early 19th Century would say, "Hey, we saw this coming." Over the last several centuries, technology has increased human productivity, which means fewer humans are required to produce the goods and services required for human existence. So what are other humans doing? Creating Facebook and the umpteenth version of the iPhone, staffing a coffee shop on every corner, providing leisure activities, participating in political campaigns, and so on.

In other words, the current attention on job creation is narrowly focused on peripheral matters. Underlying seismic shifts in the nature of economic activity in the post-Industrial Age are probably too frightening for discussion outside of academia and specialized research organizations (which themselves represent types of discretionary spending). It is much easier on the intellect to conduct a political campaign on the basis of yesterday's assumption than to venture into the unknown.