One Tenth Of One Percent

[JFN1]

I've been wondering why we can't seem to get our Congress critters to exercise the will of the People. They seem intent on doing what they believe to be in their personal best interests politically, rather than what is best for our country.

It occurs to me, that maybe it has to do with numbers.

I used to work for a bank, doing collateral analysis on mortgages, where I would be given $100,000,000 of mortgages to back against bank assets (yes, this was 20 years ago, before deregulation, when mortgages actually had to be backed with assets). At first, this scared the hell out of me. But after a while, it was just numbers on a screen I had to plow through. And shortly after that, I realized the numbers, which symbolized money, did not seem like money, no matter how hard I tried to think of it as money. It was just numbers.

I see petition drives all the time, from MoveOn, here on DU, on Kos, etc. And the goals being set are not immodest - 250,000 signatures, 500,000 signatures, even 1,000,000 signatures.

But to our Congress critters, these numbers must seem laughable. Considering that there are 300,000,000+ people in the United States, a petition with 300,000 signatures only represents 1/10 of 1% of the US population.

Now, I am not saying we should stop our petition efforts - every voice counts, and ultimately I believe it adds up.

And Congress does not seem to realize that for every person who signs a petition there could be dozens or hundreds more who agree with the petition, but lacked the means to sign it. Maybe this is why Congress feels safe to ignore polling data on the very subjects we petition the government about!

And perhaps this is also the reason they can spend our money so freely - its just numbers on a page to them, not cold hard cash coming out of the pockets of real people.

Edited to correct my Republican math!

[MannyGoldstein]

1. 1/10th Of One Percent, Actually

Still, your point is a good one.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. I read once somewhere that when a politician or manufacturer receives a hand-written letter

that they multiply it by ten or so, in regard to the number who might feel that way but haven't written.

This is likely no longer the case, as they obviously don't care whatsoever about our opinions and needs.

[aspergris]

7. actually, in the digital age

my understanding is a letter is worth a LOT more than an email or phone call.

[mmonk]

3. yes, its taken me awhile but I realize I'm just along for the ride,

a nonconcern to them unless they are trying to meet donation targets.

[exothermic]

4. I think I see why you do not work for a bank now

it's 1/10 of 1 %

:rofl:

[Uncle Joe]

5. I imagine 300 million includes little children and babies in the estimate.

One other way that number would go up other than the math issue as mentioned by above posters is to compare it to actual average voter numbers from the previous couple of elections.

Finally how do these numbers compare to recent historical petition numbers on any major national issue?

I agree with your thought regarding Congress's penchant to turn the people in to just numbers, combine that with turning money in to speech and we're headed for national calamity as the only inevitable result will be the disenfranchisement of increasing numbers of people from government and government from them.

[Indenturedebtor]

6. I don't think they care when it's 80% of the voting age population

Are you a CEO of a major corporation? No?

Then sit down and shut the fuck up! Get back to work you stupid Prole!