I am writing a second reply to you because this is a new thought and only something I just remembered which seems to not be covered by your proposal. I was inv

I am writing a second reply to you because this is a new thought and only something I just remembered which seems to not be covered by your proposal. I was involved with a startup in the past several years where one of the people in the startup had a relative that was an official in a federal bureaucracy. The startup was in an area which was tangential to the regulatory authority of that bureaucracy, but relied on third parties which definitely were under that authority. The relative, it was reported, made it clear that if we thought that the third parties were acting in a less than compliant fashion towards us, thus hindering us, we should let them know so they could make it right. I expect our colleague made a bigger deal of how connected they were with us than may have been warranted, but the implication was clear: I'm connected and can pull strings if someone gets in our way. Now of course a company reporting a regulatory problem they're having with another company isn't underhanded, no matter the connections... but I have a hunch that having the contact within the establishment would have helped that claim move up in the line or be taken more seriously than a claim coming in without the proper introductions (if you will). I don't expect the relative gave our colleague the yellow-pages number (yeah, I'm old) to make such a report, just in case, if you know what I mean. But the key here is that this didn't even involve a politician. Rent-seeking in a highly regulated environment doesn't even have to come through the politicians. It can be made through the appointed and career officials that create and enforce the regulations mandated by legislators. This is especially true today when so much of law is simply and vaguely mandating the creation of categories of regulation rather than actually specifying what is law and what it is not.