'The Laws Are Written By Lobbyists,' Says Google's Schmidt

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Atlantic: "'The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists' to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. 'It's shocking how the system actually works.' In a wide-ranging interview that spanned human nature, the future of machines, and how Google could have helped the stimulus, Schmidt said technology could 'completely change the way government works.' 'Washington is an incumbent protection machine,' Schmidt said. 'Technology is fundamentally disruptive.' Mobile phones and personal technology, for example, could be used to record the bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent." We discussed a specific example of this from the cable industry back in August.

Comments

Re:In other news

[arivanov]

Exactly.

The company in posession of one of the best lobbying machines is bitchin' about lobby influence. Gimme a break would ya...

Re:They can afford to.

[drinkypoo]

Anybody can weather adversity. There's no strength in that, no quality of character to be discerned.

That is a blatant lie. People kill themselves or just fold up and give up in cases of adversity every day.

If you truly want to see a man's character, give him power. Give him free reign. Don't try to confine or constrain him, but let him act at his every whim. That's when you learn what someone's made of.

It's free rein, although in this context it makes sense. Maybe you were just trying to be funny (fail.) You learn different things in the fat years than the lean ones, but if you're not learning in both cases, you're not paying attention.