White House most expensive tourist attraction

"Donor lists and visitor logs show that of those who gave $100,000 or more, about three-quarters of them visited the White House" (New York Times). Dispersal of political decision making would make it much less attractive to concentrate political lobbying on single individuals - whether heads of government, ministers or parlamentarians.

Direct Democracy helps to keep taxation low

A new study supports the thesis that direct democracy helps to maintain a low level of government spending. Free-spending politicians in the cartel of high-tax countries dominating the EU membership would be reigned in if the citizens would have a direct say on tax and spending measures.

Legislation runs riot

The new Finance Bill just published in the UK runs to 686 pages and nearly as many explanatory notes. For comparison, during 1980-84 the Bill was on average 153 pages long. The trend is similar in most other countries. Nothing illustrates more clearly that the legislative process is out of control and that a radical change of the system of government is required.

Government for Sale?

Rich donors get invited to State Dinner. This abuse of privilege is perpetrated by politicians from all parties. It demonstrates the need for giving the citizens a safety valve so that all decisions made by government and influenced by lobbyists can be checked at the ballot box.

Super Rich control US Politics

"...we know America’s elite Super Rich gained virtual control over Washington the past three decades" says Paul Farrell (Marketwatch). Only radical reform based on comprehensive introduction of Direct Democracy will allow to neutralise the influence of Lobbies.

Bonjour Tristesse - Professional Pols hard at work in France

Francoise Sagan will excuse the title, but checking the 'credentials' (or lack of thereof) of the two leading contenders for the French Presidency in the upcoming elections one can only feel sad, for France, for Europe and for Democracy in general. Both Francois Hollande as well as Nicolas Sarkozy have no experience in the real economy, outside the closed world of free-spending civil 'servants' (it should actually be the other way round as the citizens are now usually the servants, or maybe serfs of the political class). One has to be sceptical of President Sarkozy's sudden willingness to 'give' the electorate a say in some carefully selected and orchestrated referendums. This should not trick anybody as these concessions towards a real democratic government could quickly be consigned to the dustbin in case he would be reelected. Only a fundamental shift in the political system in the direction of full and comprehensive direct democracy offers any hope for a change in France's fortunes.

At least partial public financing of parties and elections is inescapable

States Martin Wolf (FT). We beg to disagree. While the purchasing of political power as currently demonstrated in the US is certainly objectionable we think that the introduction of direct democracy would put a major spanner into the works of lobbies. In conjunction with other reforms (term limits, less reliance on individual politicians such as Presidents, Chancellors to name just a few) power would be based on persuading the public rather than just bribing voters to tick a box once every so often to give nearly unlimited discretionary powers to certain parties.

The Rich are electing the next US President

The decision to allow give more freedom to corporations and similar entities to donate money to advocacy groups in a relatively unrestrained way illustratea that excessive reliance on a handful of judges in a Supreme Court does not necessarily result in good legislation. The 2012 Presidential Campaign is more than ever going to be decided by the spending power of the respective candidates and the contributions of the 1 per cent will in all likelihood be a decisive factor.

Democratic vacuum in EU

Possible changes to the fiscal regime in Euro zone countries mean that one of the most important democratic rights - the decision over taxes and government spending - would be taken from national electorates and vested in a supranational bureaucracy only vaguely accountable to the citizens. Even worse - some even go so far as to give the EU Courts the final say. This would mean that technocrats that owe their primary allegiance to murky backroom deals between political parties in their home country would be able to issue diktats to the citizens of states that do no toe the line. Initial calls for a referendum to sanction the transfer of power to the EU and its acolytes are - not surprisingly - already being stonewalled by the political establishment. This demonstrates the urgent need to take the decision about whether or not to hold a referendum on any legislation out of the hand of the political machines running our lives at present.

How not to hold a referendum

The inhabitants of a small rural township in Austria had to vote on the proposed merger of three neighbouring councils. The amalgamation was intended to cut down administrative costs. The result of the referendum was a resounding no as 90.3 % of the voters rejected the proposal. In our view this was a flawed proposal as the voters never had to make an honest choice that was impacting their own pocket book. Expenses for local administrative units are mostly paid for by central government funds. Only if the voters would have to bear the full cost of administering their local government unit would they have been in a position to assess the full consequences of their vote.