It looks obvious

Politic, mostly when the Clintons involved, will always surprise me. Did they really think that the story will surface, mostly after using Penn as scape goat?

On Sunday evening, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, resigned from his post after it was revealed he was working (on the side) for the passage of a Colombia Free Trade Agreement that his candidate opposed.

But within the Clinton campaign, Penn is not the highest-ranking adviser with financial ties to groups and individuals supporting the passage of the measure.

Former President Bill Clinton has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking on behalf of a Colombia-based group pushing the trade pact, and representatives of that organization tell The Huffington Post that the former president shared their sentiment.

In June 2005, Clinton was paid $800,000 by the Colombia-based Gold Service International to give four speeches throughout Latin America. The organization is, ostensibly, a development group tasked with bringing investment to the country and educating world leaders about the Colombia’s business opportunities.

It is interesting how the ethics of making a decision about trade agreement will be when it effect the President spouse bank account directly will be. It is sure a lucrative business to be in the business of selling access…

When it is more important to win regulatory favors than winning consumers where would the money be invested?

I am reading the stories, about Clinton and McCain, involvement with different lobbies with certain level of amusement. After all, what did we really thought that will happen after we built a system that make lobbying not only beneficial, but crucial? Every time that we added regulatory layer of protection we shifted the focus of corporations from the consumers to those who make difference - the regulators. On the one hand it is easier to effect few regulators than mass of consumers. But is become also necessary - because those regulations effect your corporation survival. Now instead of fighting for our money by offering us a valuable exchange of services and products, companies fighting over regulations that will protect their market share.

We also went through rounds of solutions that dealt with the symptoms instead of the actual problems. Attempts to limits the freedom of speech of lobbies and interest group to argue their cases and to protect their interest are very popular. One of the famous attempts was championed by no other than McCain himself. But the motive behind those attempts was not to limit the access of lobbies, but to limit the competition of those the lobbies needed. And instead of limiting the regulations dire effect on the consumer interest we are keep adding more, making the incentive to sell access very hard to resist.

And yet, we are surprise to find out about the ties between our politicians and lobbies.

When government influencing any aspect of our life selling access to decision making become very lucrative business, much more than, for example, giving lectures. It is somewhat naive than to expect those whose fortune depend on selling such access, to limit the phenomena. It is sad, however, that instead of focusing on pleasing the consumer, or competing in the free market, interest group invest in buying such access. The effect on the society and the economy cannot be positive.