News Presidential Financial Contributions: Romney vs. Obama

from opensecrets.org:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php

edit: to be in compliance with PWA, I'm supposed to say something. Mostly, I just think its important that we know what kind of people are supporting which candidates, because they likely see the candidate as contributing to their company's philosophies in their policies.

An interesting point is that ontheissues puts Obama at strongly supporting topic 16 (stricter laws on campaign financing) and he has no PAC. Romney is almost half PAC and opposes topic 16 overall (though he wanted to abolish PACs in 1994).

 

Obama's contributors last election:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638


Compared to McKain:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00006424

 

There's no need to be hostile, the point of the exercise is to inform voters before the election. We have to be careful and declare our interpretations. I am willing to listen to any evidence you present. I trust Romney and the banks the least, so I may inherently see something a certain way, but I'm willing to listen to reason. For the record, I see Obama as the lesser evil and I don't think my vote counts for much anyway in my state.

I've ever heard of it. Why don't you tell me about it? It looks like Romney smear, but I've only just googled it. Is it linked to Obama? What's the difference between them and a PAC?

I'm not able to find that information. In the list I see:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?cycle=2012&id=N00009638
would you provide the link?

Do you have any specifics? is that connected to this chart?

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php

 

@Skippy

Thanks, I've never heard the term 'bundlers' before. According to opensecrets, it's not just towards Obama's campaign, but also towards the Democratic party. It's interesting that opensecrets puts Obama's PAC at 0. Is opensecrets bias or can they somehow justify that? That's kind of confusing to me why there would be that conflict.

Debbie Wasserman Shultz has been caught lying before, Anderson Cooper grilled her for it:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi..._wasserman_schultz_over_romney__abortion.html

Anyway, what do you think is the motive of the "lawyers" you mentioned? You seemed to present it as a mark against Obama? Not sure what your motive was, but the information alone doesn't make Obama the greater evil. Tell me more.

Yes, Goldman-Sachs donated over one million in 2008 (my second post). What their shifting support seems to demonstrate is that they don't like the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul that Obama supports and they stand to benefit more from Romney's policies than Obama's this election. That's troublesome to me. Aren't these people that have a lot of accountability for the economic crisis?

Here's a businessweek article that comments further about the specifics:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-29/romney-s-dodd-frank-kill-pledge-collides-with-wall-street-agenda [Broken]

 

The way you're practicing Derrida's deconstruction on my post, it makes it difficult to be productive. See why this tactic is used (and shouldn't be) here. Particularly, see the chapters: "not a method", "not a critique", "not an analysis", and "not poststructuralist". As a specific example, you ask "why", when I've given the motivation in the following sentence. But through deconstruciton, you blinded yourself to context.

As for the lists I used, opensecrets defined the criteria: "top 5 contributors". It's the first piece of detailed information on the front page of their "presidential elections" coverage. When you do a piece of analysis, you define the criteria, and carry it to all cases. You don't change criteria for one case unless you have a good justification for it. It might even be seen as questionable. I want to see, for each each election, who wants the candidate to win the most. Top 5 contributors is ideal for that (and probably why it's the first piece of contirbutor-specific information opensecrets presents, no?). Of course, as skipper pointed out, we also have bundlers... but they're not as straightforward since their funds go towards Democratic party in general and names can be lost in the bundle so you have to be extra careful about your point when posting that information.

Banks:
I didn't say the banks were the primary problem, but they definitely have a lot of accountability, given their practices (I'm focusing on Goldman-Sachs here; namely because they were the top contributor to Obama, a democrat last election, but have shifted focus this election):

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html#storylink=cpy

Why don't you tell me more though, about the culpability of the authors of Dodd Frank? And why do you think it won't fix future problems (as it's intended to do, by disallowing undue risk)? I'm no expert, I'm genuinely curious. I trust rule-makers to do their job. I have good faith that the authors actually want to restrict the banks from the above practices mentioned. Why do you have bad faith?

 

Except for that my "unwarranted assumption" was in the following sentence, where you could have focused your attention and which I would have listened to a reasonable response to (and I gave you an opportunity to describe the problem with Dodd's authors where you had left a vague reference to their character) yet you focused instead on guessing my motives and trying to assay my character.

And you do so again in this post. I never denied bad faith, I openly admitted it (post #4) as well as provided evidence and reasoning for it (post #12). Yet you still focus on me instead of the real content. It makes me feel like you aren't really interested in having a real discussion. As I told skippy, I'm completely open to reason and argument... but you're not presenting that; you're presenting vague references and innuendo and trying to guess my motives.

 

Huffington Post on why we need regulation like Dodd Frank, especially because of behavior still being committed by JP Morgan:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...oss-2-billion-financial-crisis_n_1510217.html

more from reuters on JP Morgan's strategies:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/14/us-jpmorgan-trades-idUSBRE84D04X20120514

The main problem here is derivatives abuse (which played a lead role in the subprime crisis of 2008). The Volcker Rule is an especially important aspect of the Dodd-Frank legislation in this aspect. And of course, Romney wants repeal the Volcker rule, which may explain why his top 5 contributors (accoring to opensecrets) are banks that are known for their derivatives abuse.

 

Are you able to find a free version of the article or else take some excerpts or summarize the main points?