In the U.S. the best elections money can buy

The Center for Responsive Politics calculates that the money spent on congressional and presidential races this year will come close to 6 billion dollars. This is 7% more than the last elections four years ago.

The American author and humorist Mark Twain or Samuel Langhorne Clemens once remarked sarcastically about the United States: " We have the best government that money can buy." No doubt the U.S. also has the best elections that money can buy.

This year more money will be spent through Super PACs and other outside groups now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the right of free speech. To summarize briefly the Supreme Court decision:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.

One result of this decision was the formation of what came to be called super PACs(Political Action Committees) described as follows:

The result of the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org decisions was the rise in 2010 of a new type of political action committee, popularly dubbed the "super PAC".... Super PACs may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns. Also unlike traditional PACs, they can raise funds from corporations, unions and other groups, and from individuals, without legal limits.

Super PACs are not required to reveal their donors.

Sheila Krumholz the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics says that present data shows that the record breaking expenditures of the 2008 elections are on track to be broken. She also noted:

"More important than the total spent, the real difference this cycle is how great a portion of that money will come from purportedly independent, often secretive groups."

The Center predicts that the presidential race on its own will cost close to 2.5 billion. A reporter for USA TODAY estimates that spending by candidates, parties, and the super PACs associated with each candidate has already crossed the one billion mark.

The big change in 2012 is outside money. There have always been outside groups supporting different causes and candidates but the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling has led to a huge surge in super PACs. While even in earlier elections huge sums were spent to convince voters to vote for Democrats or Republicans now the influence of money and corporations will be even larger. Third parties who simply cannot raise the funds required to gain public attention haven't a chance. The media pay them no mind. The end result is as Mark Twain said: "The best government that money can buy".

International Year of Cooperatives 2012

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives. IIndividuals and communities will be encouraged to promote cooperatives and recognize their contribution to economic development. The UN has a special site for the Year of Cooperatives. One of the aims is to raise awareness of cooperatives among the public.

On the prairies where I live retail consumer cooperative stores are quite common especially in small towns. Often a consumer retail coop plus a financial coop(Credit Union) will be key businesses. The slogan for the Year is: "Cooperative Enterprises Build A Better World ".

Cooperatives provide an alternative to the private shareholder for-profit type of business that is most common and well known. Consumer Coops elect boards of directors based upon one member one vote rather than on the basis of voting shares held. In retail and financial coops surplus funds not reinvested are returned to members often on the basis of the business transacted with the coop rather than as a dividend based upon shares held. Economic development through coops has often been encouraged in underdeveloped countries especially rural development. However there are huge coops in cities as well. For example New York's Coop City has about 55,000 residents in a housing complex.

 Cooperatives are identified as follows "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise." Co-operatives "are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of co-operative founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others."

While there are many different types of cooperatives and cooperative governance consumer cooperatives are quite common in many countries both in rural and urban settings. A consumer cooperative is owned by the members. In Western Canada consumer cooperatives often offer groceries, hardware, and agricultural supplies, and fuel. Credit Unions are run on basically the same principles but offer financial services. The largest consumer cooperative is the Cooperative Group in the UK. In Japan there are over 14 million who are members of consumer cooperatives. Switzerland also has very large consumer coops including the largest supermarket Migros.

 Another common coop is the worker cooperative. In a worker coop it is the workers rather than the consumers of the products that own the business. The actual rules and governance vary from country to country. In India for example every employee of a worker coop must be a member of the coop and every member of the coop must also work at the coop. In the UK there are more than 400 worker cooperatives. Mondragon in Spain is a federation of worker cooperatives: At the end of 2011 it was providing employment for 83,869 people working in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge.

There are cooperatives in various areas. For example uitlity coops provide power on a cooperative basis and housing cooperatives do the same for housing. Cooperatives provide a democratic, participatory business model that serves the people who belong to it and often the community as well.