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Google, Apple, Amazon Hit Record Lobbying Highs (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The last three months brought record-high lobbying spending from four major tech companies: Google spent $5.93 million, Apple spent $2.2 million, Amazon spent $3.21 million, Uber spent $430,000. Facebook spent $2.38 million this quarter, up from the same period last year but far from a record. Microsoft's bill for the quarter was just over $2 million.
legalized bribery?
The last three months brought record-high lobbying spending from four major tech companies: Google spent $5.93 million, Apple spent $2.2 million, Amazon spent $3.21 million, Uber spent $430,000. Facebook spent $2.38 million this quarter, up from the same period last year but far from a record. Microsoft's bill for the quarter was just over $2 million.
Just call it corruption. You know why?
It's because if any company did the same thing in the so called "3rd world", this same activity would be termed as "corruption" as part of "buying off politicians."
Sad.
Tell me about it. In Sweden, if you are a politician and rent an apartment to a price questionably low, congratulations, you're being investigated for bribery and you're in the national news.
If you served in the government and someone buys you dinner, you better decline or you're up for a bribe charge and end up in the national news.
Turns out the key to efficient governing is making sure the government isn't schizophrenic (no corruption or conflicts of interest).
Money is free speech.
Only in the USA. In more democratic countries, political donations are limited / capped.
Not a coincidence that after the U.S. Dept. of Justice filed an antitrust case, Microsoft's lobbying bill went from $0 to millions of dollars each year. See "Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft" by David Bank.
SCOTUS said it was legal because SCOTUS itself was put in place in part via corporate influence. It's recursive, and may get worse. Yes, a "slippery slope"; they do happen.
Table-ized A.I.
Dismissing such corporate lobbying as "corruption" is far too simplistic an explanation to merit the "insightful" mod. Maybe it's just too soon for the story and better comments are yet to come, but (of course) I think it's just a reflection of the current "state of the Slashdot". Hint: The state of the Slashdot is NOT "strong, very strong".
There is a deep issue here, but it involves the prioritization of the single metric of "money, more money" above everything else. In reality, LOTS of other things are as important or even MORE important than money, but corporate cancerism now reduces everything else to that metric. If I were forced to pick a single metric, I would probably pick time, and I certainly think time is much more important than money. From that perspective, I think the deeper solution is to dump crude economics and evolve to ekronomics, a time-based approach to assess what is actually important in life, even for the so-called lives of corporations.
What is interesting to me about this particular story is the underlying conflict. WHY are they spending all this money?
I think we're seeing a climatic struggle here, and the giant (EVIL) corporations are obviously in favor of today's so-called Republicans. That's because they have some agreement on their priorities. Today's GOP actively wants government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% of the population.
The other side of the struggle has much simpler priorities. #PresidentTweety wants government of the Donald, by the Donald, for the Donald. The corporations obviously don't like that so much, but the joke is that Trump is NOT even in the 0.1%. The hilarious secret of Trump's tax returns is that his so-called assets are just laundry fees for Putin's dirty rubles. (Gross simplification, especially in that Trump's incompetence had driven him to dirty money long before Putin became a player.)
Government of the people, by the people, for the people? Ain't NO major player on that side. Ain't no one worrying about the country or Constitution these days. Especially on the GOP side, the priorities are just party politics, private profits, and personal power.
So you want to invoke their oaths to defend and protect the Constitution? ROFLMAO
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Most people don't care when the lobbying is on 'their' side. As long as most people don't care, it will continue to happen.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It never surprises me that politicians can be bought, only how cheaply.
... and going up against the combined anti-net-neutrality speech of Comcast, AT&T, Charter, Verizon, etc. weighting in at 572 million. I say good luck, yer gonna ta needid.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?