Americans spend $14 surfing for every $1 they spend on presidential elections.
Of course surfing is more fun and many would say more important.
But maybe if we spent more on elections the results would get better.
Sources:
According to Jim Messina, The campaign mananger for President Obama’s re-election: “All in all, the Republicans are ready to spend $1 billion — whatever it takes to defeat President Obama” from a fund raising email received on 4/28/2012. So extrapolating both sides will spend $2 billion plus
According to Todd Woody in Forbes Magazine on May 7, 2012 surfing is a $7 billion industry:
So presidential elections cost $2 billion every four years and surfing costs $28 billion (4 years times $7 billion)
A 14 to one ratio.
Conclusion: When one side or the other is complaining about the cost of elections it means that they are getting outspent because their target market would rather go surfing.