Facts

This page is for facts, statistics, videos, or anything else I can find to inform you on my blog. When I find information on reliable websites, I will make sure to post a hyperlink so anyone wanting to do more research on that website can easily access it from my blog.

The United States Senate defines lobbying as, “the practice of trying to persuade legislators to propose, pass, or defeat legislation or to change existing laws.”

Because I am going to be talking about certain institutions quite a bit in my blog, I have decided it would be a great idea to put a brief explanation and pictures up of these vital institutions. The first two institutions I would like to discuss is the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF is an organization responsible for overseeing the world’s financial structure. They also observe exchange rates, and offer financial assistance to countries in need. The IMF’s chairman is also European, even though this is not a formal policy. Currently the IMF’s Chairman is a Frenchman, Dominique Strass-Kahn.

Dominique Strass-Kahn

photo taken from http://www.lanhdao.net

The World Bank’s main objective is to reduce global poverty. They loan money to developing countries for certain developing projects. Although it is not a formal policy either, the World Bank’s President is always an American. Currently, the President is Robert Zoellick.

Robert Zoellick

photo taken from http://www.techlaw.com

I was not able to research these two institutions as much as I would have hoped for, however I was able to research the current 2008 Presidential campaign. The numbers raised from there are much larger than I ever expected. As mentioned on another of my pages, three presidential candidates have SPENT, so far (as of March 31) a total of $406,168,048.

Let’s compare that to the 2004 election: some would say 2004’s Presidential election was one of our country’s most controversial elections. Between the three candidates that spent the most, at the end of the election, total spending amounted to $659,516,277. It would appear as if the three candidates of 2008 are on track to surpass that total. The Democratic party received a large amount of contributions from large corporations who have and continue to lobby heavily on federal legislation.

And now, lets look at the 2000 election: Our top three candidates ONLY spent $345,116,036. And of that year a large majority of contributors were large corporations who benefited from lighter environmental and economic legislation. As mentioned earlier in this blog, A FULL 77% of contributions to the Republican presidential campaign were from major polluter corporations.

Many things in life are taken for granted. Our country owns a large majority of this world’s cars, even though we only make up a small percentage of this planet. We promote the use of cars, and through that the consumption of oil. Companies such as General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone were determined to make sure our nation did not give in to public transportation. “They aggressively bought up public transportation systems and closed them down, eliminating more environmentally sustainable competition to the automobile” (Hossay, Patrick, Unsustainable, p. 62)

In1998, corporate lobbying reached $1.45 billion dollars. In 2007, corporate lobbying reached an all time high at $2.80 billion.

The top donating industry in the last nine years has donated 1,329,512,607.00, which was pharmaceuticals and health products. The industry at the bottom of the donation list, was defense aerospace, has spent $ 369,483,995.00. That amount of money is incredible!

The top three lobbying firms in this country has been:

1. Patton Boggs LLP

2. Cassidy and Assoc

3. Akin, Gump et al