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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-is-my-shocked-face dept.

An investigation into nearly 1 million bills across all 50 US states showed a high proportion of proposed US laws being written by lobbyists. The investigation was based on computer analysis of the similarities in language used in the bills. Additionally, copycat legislation is a problem. That is where states copy-paste key parts of proposed legislation from each other, and often the original is can be traced back to lobbyists. Many tricks are used to increase acceptance of these bills such as use of deceptive titles, misleading endorsements, copied bills to override locally sourced bills, and more. The article includes several graphics showing the distribution of bad practices across the states.

A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation.

USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 15 2019, @04:23AM (4 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 15 2019, @04:23AM (#829634) Journal

    The USD is the world's reserve currency, therefore whatever applies to the USD applies to the world economy.

    "Reserve currency" does not mean "national currency".
    A national economy (other than the US) does not absolutely depend on USD to function - if the US feds stop issuing new money, the economy of France/Germany/Norway/China (among many others) will continue to function, thanks for asking.

    Also, the wealth distribution policy does not necessary depend on whatever US fed bank does (see the Nordic model [wikipedia.org]).

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:29AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:29AM (#829639)

    You seem unfamiliar with the importance of the reserve currency, the values of all other currencies depend on it:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency [wikipedia.org]

    And anyway, all the central banks do what the BIS says they should do, so would do the same thing.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 15 2019, @04:54AM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 15 2019, @04:54AM (#829657) Journal

      Explain to yourself how a Norse or a Chinese waits for her/his money to trickle down by US fed bank, I'm no longer interested [xkcd.com].

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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:18AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:18AM (#829663)

        It isn't at all confusing. It is very straight forward.

        Fed loans to us gov, gov uses funds as collateral one way or the other for treasuries, china buys US treasuries, Chinese reserves increase, china central bank can loan out more money in its own way without losing value vs the dollar.

        Did you not look at what reserve currencies are used for?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:44PM (#829971)

          All until BRICS moves away from the US dollar. Make sure you have a spare gas can. Long way from here until the next gas station.