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Following Tech's Money Trail In Washington
snydeq writes "Having outlayed $111 million to gain political influence in 2009, the tech industry is clearly learning how to play the lobbying game, writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. And while longtime lobbying stalwart General Motors nearly outspent the tech industry on its own, the rise of lobbying among tech giants, especially those under antitrust scrutiny, is staggering. Google, which has been drawing interest from the feds over its online advertising business, has increased its efforts twelve-fold in the past four years. And while Google frames its sudden increased interest in Washington as a matter of growth inspiring greater civic responsibility, the company may find itself sucked further into Washington, now that it is party to an international spat involving both the US and Chinese governments. Among those that top the list of tech lobbyists, Oracle, Intel, and Microsoft all have come under scrutiny in the past year, with Intel accused of monopolistic practices and Oracle requiring sign off on its merger with Sun."
...more influence bought by money.
Living With a Nerd
Back in 2007-2008, I was doing lobbying work for an non-profit organization. At one event for a certain congressman from Iowa, I was seated between a lobbyist from Northrop-Grumman and a lobbyist from Microsoft (incidentally, I was across from a sugar industry lobbyist, and ended up getting into a separate argument with him about tariffs on sugar being why we have to use hfcs in soda and whatnot, but that's irrelevant).
During the lunch, I got into a conversation with the MS lobbyist and asked him if he thought it would be worth it to upgrade from XP to Vista on my laptop, to which he replied "do you still have the XP disks that came with the computer?" "No," I said, "I got the laptop as part of the compensation from my last contract and it didn't come with the disks." "Well, then," he replied "I'd just leave well enough alone since you won't be able to go back when things go wrong."
Frankly, it was one of the most sensible things that I'd heard anyone say then entire time I was in D.C.
The anticipated increase in demand for lobbyists has led to a sharp rise in the NYSE, apparently in response to higher stock prices in the weasel breeding industry. Revised tipping fees at local dumps are also expected to change as the unfilled demand for lobbyists increases "landfill mining" to recover used sanitary products.
Observers say both source streams should be on-line and supplying lobbyists within the year.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
“lobbying” is nothing else, than a euphemism for bribing. Which would be equal to treason for the politician, if that were not changed trough... you guessed it... bribing.
Which would mean at least a decade of well-deserved prison or death penalty, in most law systems.
Yay. “But it’s just lobbying. It’s normal.”
No, it’s not! Way to twist reality...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It doesn't take long for an industry to develop (or simply realize) the reality that it is cheaper to lobby the government to ban your competitors than it is to out-compete them (or become commoditized). Even the good guys have to pay, because even if they are not seeking government protection, their competitors are.
If you allow the government any control over economic activity, for totally virtuous reasons, you'll end up here. Eventually it becomes more profitable to regulate (i.e. to destroy) than to produce. At which time a cultural reboot is necessary.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The U.S. government consistently spends money it doesn't have, and is has more debt per citizen than any country in the history of the world.
Wrong.
The U.S. government has 6 times the percentage of its citizens in prison of any other country in the history of the world.
Well, Most other oppressive governments just kill their opposition.
The U.S. government is very corrupt. The government is not about what's sensible, but about who has the most money.
You're not honestly trying to imply that the US is unique in that regard.
The U.S. government has killed or caused the death of more than 11 million people since the end of the 2nd world war. All of that killing was apparently for money.
You're a plant by the government to make those of us who don't trust the government look dumber and more paranoid, aren't you?
The U.S. government has 6 times the percentage of its citizens in prison of any other country in the history of the world.
The politicians are following the citizens on that one. Locking everyone up for minor, non-violent offences is so inefficient, it offends even the most bureaucratic public servants, there are other, cheaper and easier ways of making the uninformed public think you're doing the job you said you would than actually getting "tougher on crime." If you say you're going to get tougher on crime, lock up more people, and build more jails, you're going to eventually piss off your own base because you've spent too much money on it and have to raise taxes.
But now it's become entrenched, if you say to the public "Hey, we really don't need to lock all these people up, this guy stole a blanket and can't pay bail, who cares if he never shows up to court, it's costing us about a thousand dollars a week in taxpayer money to keep him in jail, over a matter of 10 bucks, it's just stupid," then you'll be labeled soft on crime by your opponents, and get thrown out next election.
(not to make you feel sorry for the pols, just saying this isn't the government's choice.)
The wiki data is ~7-8 months old, and we have generated a fair amount of external debt in that time. As an example, our debt is now greater than the GDP, whereas in the chart it is shown as 95% of GDP. We're moving up the list!
Also, although the external debt is the most worrisome from a number of perspectives, the internal debt is also significant and not included on the wiki page.
In addition to all that, there have been a number of write-downs of debt in the past two years where large sums of money just vanished off the books of corporations, banks, and government-controlled agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If properly accounted for, that could add trillions to the debt load, some of which is internal, and some of which is external.
The wiki page is therefore probably incomplete, even if it is an accurate snapshot at the times the data entries were made.
they all should get tangled with washington i mean. the reason we have been thrown at us so much shit trying to damage and subdue internet in the past few years was that the tech crowd didnt do any lobbying or care for it at all. in the end we had the anti net neutrality attack, then came acta. we still havent thwarted acta.
had they got smart and entered washington before the net neutrality attack, we probably would have proper laws by now, or, at least we wouldnt be on the defense against megacorporations and cartels of the established order in the war for the internet.
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