3 ms·

Not everything scales.

• rayiner 9y ago
  There isn't more than $15 million worth of things a company like Google could be lobbying over?
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    They may be already getting what's politically feasible.
    • rayiner 9y ago
      That's one inference, but is it plausible? It's not exactly like courts and prosecutors are cracking down on lobbying right now. Also, the National Association of Realtors is spending about double what Google and AT&T are spending now. There is headroom to spend more without ending up at the top of the list. Also, have you ever even seen these lobbying figures cited in any news media? What mechanism is creating this backpressure?
      • maxxxxx 9y ago
        Politicians can't favor one group too blatantly without backlash,. There also need to be PR campaigns that sway public opinion. I bet a lot of money goes there.
        • rayiner 9y ago
          > Politicians can't favor one group too blatantly without backlash. Let's say politicians can exercise a level of favoritism, F, without incurring public backlash, and the value of that favoritism to the party it is exercised for the benefit of is $V. It costs $P to get the politician to exercise that level of favoritism. The hypothesis is that P >> V. But why should that be the case? Shouldn't companies be bidding up P until it approaches V? Now, you could also hypothesize that the public doesn't just care about L, it cares about P in and of itself. But I don't think the public really knows about P, and in fact would be surprised to find that companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars like Google and AT&T spend "only" $10-15 million/year in lobbying. (That is, after all, exactly the sentiment OP expressed upthread.)