Of Socio-Economic Matters

Sometimes I sit in sociology class and silently fume, wondering how the instructor and my classmates could ever arrive at the conclusions that they do.
Last week, we discussed lobbying. Lobbyists are firms hired by special interest groups to take their cases before the the legislators. Lobbyists shmooze and booze the legislators with gifts until the the legislators cave and push those bills through. Lobbyists are often former legislators and know Joe Senator(s) + play the insider card for all its worth.
Lobbyists aren't the scum of the earth, the legislators are. Taking gifts/bribes should be illegal and you should be kicked out of Congress for doing it. I realize that this would eliminate 99.9% of the Congress but if you don't make strict consequences for something it isn't going to stop. And then we got on the topic of drug reps doing the same thing and I think that's a little differant, the doc still has an obligation to his patient.If the doc wants to be bribed, I don't see a problem with it, as long as the patient is getting good care. Obviously, I don't know much about drug reps and someone else can educate me on why thats a horrible idea. We don't elect doctors- we do elect Congressmen and they need to be pandering to the overall good of the people, not to the will of Corporation X. Lobbying can be good(more research for diseases) but the system is all wrong. Legislators are only thinking about making the special interest groups happy. Everyone says they shouldn't be doing it, no one wants to suggest radical methods to STOP the corruption.
Then, we got to discussing the rich, evil CEOs and I'm thinking, get a life, people. Yes, by and large they are not the phelanthropic sort but we pay our sport gods millions a year without batting an eyelid and then complain bitterly about shelling out for a CEO(whose jobs encompass much more personal responsibility and extreme stress) I believe CEO's should be well paid, they have important decisions to make. I don't believe their severance packages should be so well padded, they should get the same as the next dude.(have some concern for the company going under) And as it relates to the automabile crises...I think that its partially due to the recession, partially the fact that everything made in this country is slapped with such high taxes its just cheaper to buy foreign. If Congress can't see the importance of getting a fairer tax system, they'll have to continue to bail out the big dudes on a regular basis.

(1 day of finals done...2 to go!)