That’s so little money compared to the size of the companies, and consistent with what I said elsewhere—it’s money used to pay lobbyists for making PowerPoint presentations on tech policy. That may or may not be bad because smaller players can’t afford similar influence, but it’s not the greasing palms that people think of when they rail against lobbying.

I suppose the actual corruption happens in the revolving door - politicians gain benefits afterward from the industry. Either you are in or out - and if you are in, there are lot of post political perks to be gained. The lobbyists role in all of this is to communicate what the corporations want, and formulate it into a message the politicians can sell to their constituencies with a straight face.

When I worked for Lucent I met someone who described himself as a "project management expert" at a regional conference. I thought, "holy shit I suck as project manager I should talk to this guy." Upon inquiry, I learned that he hadn't been on a project in years, and actually didn't teach any project management classes either. Ballast. After I related my confusion to someone else, I got a "Ssshhhh! That guy is some Senator's cousin. They have to keep him on for five years after the Senator leaves office." I.e., his job was more secure than that of literally anyone else at the conference. Did Lucent receive some consideration for this accommodation? Have they and Ma Bell done the same thing for decades?

Our system is composed of mutually revolving fictions. We pretend that campaign finance isn't corrupt, and we also pretend that all corruption that takes place is in the form of campaign finance.

"...we also pretend that all corruption that takes place is in the form of campaign finance."

I thought the revolving door principle was a known deficit in the western style political system (contra some others where politicians just get direct 'gifts').

Maybe not, then?

Sure, I think that's corrupt. Not everyone agrees with me. For instance, there are lots of FCC fans on HN, and that body is built on the revolving door.

It doesn't take much money to influence politics in the US. It's confusing in that sense but politicians are often caught taking very small 5 and 6-figure bribes.

A number of years ago I figured out the required budget to pay for the entirety of the winning campaigns for the most expensive 51% of senators and representatives. IIRC it came out to a quarter's profits for one of the megacorporations.

That was before SuperPACs were widespread, which make it easy to spread that money around.

The surprising thing used to be how cheaply politicians can be bought, and now it's how that can be done so legally.

Isn’t that a huge red flag to your conclusion, though? Generally (legal) avenues for outsize returns don’t just sit around waiting to be exploited cheaply. Look at how much VC money is chasing below market returns. We’re supposed to believe that lobbying yields huge returns but megacorps like Yahoo are investing just $10-20 million a year on it?

Don't assume that lobbying is the only form of corruption. There's lots of illegal stuff too. Federal officials seem reluctant to investigate more than sporadically. It's almost as if self-interest affects their actions too.

In the context ("level playing field") of this sub-thread, that money is enough to tilt the playing field, not only against little guys, but against other large corporations.