REVIEW: Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets

A great book. It explains why it seems that there is no real difference between the Republicans and the Democrats: it is because there isn’t. They are both just two sides of the same coin: extortionists.

As the author says, the problem with Washington is not that there is too much money in politics, but that there is too much politics in money. In other words, the federal government has expanded into so many areas of life and business that the politicians have been empowered to create a sophisticated system of extorting money from businesses and special interests that otherwise would have no interest in politics. And the only reason there are two parties is so that they can both collude together to “tag team” the victims. One side proposes a law that will hurt a particular business or industry, the other side comes along and claims to oppose the law. They both have to be paid off in order to guarantee that nothing “bad happens”. The double team approach is much more effective than the Mafia style shake down. With the Mafia you only have to pay off one crook in order to protect yourself. With the Washington Republocrats you have to pay them both off. And the best part is that the problems never get solved. Because solving problems is bad for business. People don’t pay you off after you have solved a problem. They pay you off to defer the problem until later. That way both Republicans and Democrats are guaranteed a steady stream of ill gotten loot without having to come up with “new problems” to use as leverage.

Frankly, if you are short on time try to just read the introduction. It is perhaps the best part of the book. The rest of the book is just detailed case studies providing comprehensive evidence of the author’s claims of systemic “bipartisan” corruption in Washington.

http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Pockets/dp/0544103343/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440914238&sr=1-1&keywords=Extortion

About fafc

The goal of the “Find a Free Country Project” is to research, explore and find a safe and secure free country outside the USA, that is not too large, has a relatively open immigration policy, has a friendly business climate, has a non-intrusive government committed to freedom, and then move to it.
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12 Responses to REVIEW: Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets

  1. Croatian Capitalist says:

    Sadly, there being little or no real difference between the 2 main parties is not something that is limited to the USA, you can see the same thing in the UK, Croatia (in around 1990 or so the communist party here split into two parts/parties, with one of them pretending to be “right-wing”, but they are more or less the same as the other part(y) which is still openly left-wing), Germany, etc., but the common people still fight each other over political affiliation, while the politicians do their thing.

    • fafc says:

      The first example of this I can recall (from reading — I am not that old) is the Byzantine Empire and the Circus Factions. Essentially people in Constantinople took their chariot racing so serious that they would form fan leagues to support their favorite teams. They dressed differently to identify themselves from other fans, and would often riot in the stadium and the streets over small issues of bad officiating. During one particular bad set of riots, the emperor was about to abandon the city, but was bolstered by his wife and instead called out the Varangian Guard (Viking Mercenaries) to “deal” with the rioters. After tens of thousands were slaughtered the Emperor came up with an idea. Rather than constantly suffer from these Circus Factions, why not employ them to distract from more important political complaints that sometimes emerge from the violence. So the Emperor picked one faction of chariot fans to run the government (to the outrage of the other team’s fans), and then sat back and watched as the two factions vied for power, often seeking to prove how the other party was unfit to govern in petitions before the Emperor. The Emperor thus sat above the fray while the idiots believed they were in control of the government, at least until the Emperor removed them and replaced them with the other factions. This state of affairs lasted for centuries until the entire Byzantine Empire collapsed.

  2. Croatian Capitalist says:

    A lot of today’s problems seem to have their origins in the Roman Empire(s), and today’s Westerners still take sports way too seriously.

  3. Croatian Capitalist says:

    What is the name of the book about the naval history of Portugal that you mentioned? I would like to read it.

  4. Croatian Capitalist says:

    Obrigado!

  5. Croatian Capitalist says:

    Have you read any other good books recently?

    • fafc says:

      Yes. But mostly fiction. I have little taste for reality lately. The few non-fiction books I have picked seem to be more fictional than the fiction!

      • Croatian Capitalist says:

        I have a hard time reading fiction for the most part, I believe that the works of Tolkien (in English of course (Croatian translations of foreign books are bad for the most part in my experience)) are the only works of fiction which I have in my private library, all the other books which I possess are related to one of the following topics; Business, linguistics, history, coinage, economics, law or politics.

        • fafc says:

          Well lately I have been reading science fiction and fantasy. I picked up a book Collpase, by Jared Diamond, but it was so full of lies I just couldn’t keep reading.

  6. Croatian Capitalist says:

    After double-checking, I noticed that I do have another fiction book (even though it is based to practicality): https://www.amazon.com/Richest-Man-Babylon-George-Clason/dp/1505339111

  7. Croatian Capitalist says:

    The last book I have read is this one: https://www.ft.com/content/a242ace8-7da8-11e5-98fb-5a6d4728f74e

    I would put it into the semi-fiction category, because even though there is truth in the book, it is also full of half-truths and outright lies (such as calling the leftist, anti-White one-party state of South Africa a “vibrant democracy (or something to that effect)”), so I wouldn’t recommend the book to anyone.

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