When I read of all the millions involved in political campaigns I wonder what effect it is having on the economy. I almost see it as wasted resource, but know there’s more to it than that.
Whether from private individuals or organizations, this has got to have an impact somewhere. Where does it come from? Where does it go? Does it prop up advertising, venues, local businesses in a large way? Has it become a key part of our national economy?
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Adding my take since an important detail is being missed:
The money being poured into politics is beneficial for the economy. The economy does better when more money is flowing from one person to another, and it does worse if money stays in one spot (or one bank account) not being used.
When people give money to politicians, it is almost always used to buy something. We can assume this will usually be used for advertising, then the advertising industry will spend that money all throughout the economy. The final result is that the single dollar spent can create way more than one dollars worth of benefit for the economy (the number of times that the single dollar is spent in a year is called the “Velocity”)
Some people may say that spending money on politics doesn’t do anything since that money could be spent elsewhere to get the same result. But this overlooks one major detail: only very rich people are giving money to politicians, and very rich people are more likely to keep money in their bank accounts. This means that money being poured into politics wouldnt have been spent otherwise.
Money in politics prevents money sitting in savings accounts, which is bad for the economy.
(To clarify – this is from a very short term perspective. When i wrote this I assumed that none of the politicians will change how they manage the government because of money given to them)
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