Podcasts Technology Astral Codex Ten Podcast Too Much Dark Money in Almonds

Too Much Dark Money in Almonds

Published: Sept. 22, 2019, 7:53 a.m.

Link:\xa0https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/

Everyone always talks about how much money there is in politics. This is the wrong framing. The right framing is\xa0Ansolabehere et al\u2019s: why is there so\xa0little\xa0money in politics? But Ansolabehere focuses on elections, and the mystery is wider than that.

Sure, during the 2018 election, candidates, parties, PACs, and outsiders combined\xa0spent about $5 billion\xa0\u2013 $2.5 billion on Democrats, $2 billion on Republicans, and $0.5 billion on third parties. And although that sounds like a lot of money to you or me, on the national scale, it\u2019s puny. The US almond industry earns $12 billion per year. Americans spent about 2.5x as much on almonds as on candidates last year.

But also, what about lobbying? Open Secrets reports\xa0$3.5 billion\xa0in lobbying spending in 2018. Again, sounds like a lot. But when we add $3.5 billion in lobbying to the $5 billion in election spending, we only get $8.5 billion \u2013 still less than almonds.

What about think tanks? Based on numbers discussed in\xa0this post, I estimate that the budget for all US think tanks, liberal and conservative combined, is probably around $500 million per year. Again, an amount of money that I wish I had. But add it to the total, and we\u2019re only at $9 billion. Still less than almonds!