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“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
— Mark Twain
“Modern-day political/economic parasites provide an excellent example of the distortion of information and economies created by vested interests.
For instance, the number of parasitic “professionals” in the United States has increased dramatically in recent years. Each of these professions represent a vested interest:
Number of Lawyers in 1960 equaled 260,000; in 1990 756,000
Number of Political Lobbyists in 1960 equaled 365, in 1990 40,111
Number of Trade Associations in 1960 equaled 4,900; in 1990 23,000
Number of Federal Regulatory Staff in 1960 equaled 70,000; in 1990 130,000
There are now 400 lobbyists in Washington for every Senator! The number of federal lawsuits has roughly tripled in the last 30 years. Forty-two percent of the members of the House of Representatives are lawyers, compared to only fifteen percent in an 18-country average outside the United States. Each of these lawyers and lobbyists are trying to influence the creation or enforcement of laws to serve the vested interests they represent.
The financial distortion and stress on the national economy created by these professionals is staggering.
There are two ways to get rich:
1/ produce something valuable from which you create new wealth, or
2/ try to get a share of somebody else’s wealth.
These professions, by setting themselves up as middlemen in our economy each take a share of our wealth. Of course, these parasites think very highly of their own work and demand very high wages.
It is estimated that the cost of paying for federal regulation, including the residual work involved in processing the enormous amount of paperwork required to comply with newly created government regulation–which often requires the services of a lawyer, since these regulations are all written in legal language that only lawyers understand–costs the American taxpayers about $4,000 per household, or $392 billion, a year.”
— Excerpt from THE OZ FACTORS by Lawrence R. Spencer.
The U.S. Congress has long been dominated by lawyer-politicians. “From 1780 to 1930, two thirds of the senators and about half of the House of Representatives were lawyers; the percentage seems to have stayed fairly stable” (Friedman 1985: 647). . . . at the beginning of the 101st Congress in 1989, 184 members (42%) of the U.S. House of Representatives were lawyers (47% of the Democrats and 35 % of the Republicans). Sixty-three senators were lawyers, roughly equally distributed between the two parties (Ornstein, Mann, and Malbin 1990: 20-21, 26-27). At the beginning of the 102nd Congress in January, 1991, 244 of the 535 members of both houses (46%) claimed attorney as their profession.
. . .too many lawyers cause the law not to be made in a commonsense way but in a legalistic way. Process is worshiped over result because the lawyers get paid more for the process than the result. What could be more enjoyable to a lawyer than arguing the law after making the law which to be argued—as a legislator. Because lawyers control all legal rulemaking an increase in the number of lawyers does not cause a reduction in their individual activity. It simply increases their percentage take of the American economy.
Lawyer reform is in order!
