Hacker News Reader

Comment by eddtries | Hacker News Reader

The thing that I find shocking about lobbying is just how cheap it is. In the FTX trial the amount they spent lobbying politicians for pro-crypto laws was released and we're talking low five figures. SBF even said lobbying was very cheap for the impact you can get.

Naively I thought it would cost millions to get a politician to support you but actually it's cheap enough a FAANG engineer could individually pay enough to lobby someone lol.

Edit: Literally the user base on HN would be able to crowdfund and organise a lobbying group greater than the NRA ($2.93M in 2022) if we wanted to - lobbying is such a smaller industry than I intuitively expect

View on HN

> organise a lobbying group greater than the NRA ($2.93M in 2022)

This is... a little misleading. They also have at least two PACs (here's the big one: https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...)

Now, you could claim, though not particularly credibly, that money spent on PACs is not lobbying money.

So, 10-30 million all up per election cycle, chump change for many venture investors for example.

>Now, you could claim, though not particularly credibly, that money spent on PACs is not lobbying money.

There are PACs and then there's AIPAC with a 70M/year budget.

Still that is rather small like here Finland average organization uses 34 – 57 million euros to lobbying. source https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/1...

You’re misreading the study. It says they asked 115 people for a low and high range of organizational spend on lobbying, and the sum of the estimates was 34-57 million.

So divide 57 by 115, and you get about 0.5 million euros on average for the high estimate.

(Some of the respondents may work for the same organization which complicates calculating the average. Hence why they’re reporting the sums instead, I guess.)

Fair enough, I googled and used the first reputable source I could find. But sure, including the two other PACs, this is still IMO small change. I thought we were talking hundreds of millions or even billions regarding the NRA.

That money is just to employ lobbyists and their associated expenses.

I'm sure there is additional money for lobbying that is not on the books. Holidays, houses, good bullion, crypto, free memberships to exclusive clubs and the like that is gifted to politician's and their spouses by big industry.

So with regards to FTX these were listed in the same spreadsheet as "Gifts", and there were some, but we're still talking low five figures for the majority of politicians. And it's not like FTX were not willing to spend more, they spent $68M on Tom Brady and Giselle for a two year contract to advertise FTX, or $500k on hotel rooms for interns in Miami.

Is that low five figures each?

Yeah, each!

Doctors do get weekends in fancy hotels and subscriptions offered by big pharmas for sure: I've got friends who get those.

It's getting far more regulated though, and that's a good thing - big Pharma pushing drugs to doctors is one of the most sickening parts of capitalism.

I think we're partially mistaken about the true value and reason for lobbying existing as a concept. It's a cover that muddies the waters in discussion about laws, a coping mechanism for "The Other Side" and at the same time an endless stream of content for potential reporting by reporters/media.

It's about relationships - soft power - more than money. Speaking fees, revolving door/sinecure jobs, and donations to your charities will be there for you should you need it, so there's no need to ask for things up front.

Also it has to do with wink wink nudge nudge "Come see us if the election doesn't work out."

Knowing you are losing an election and getting dumped into a $350k/yr easy-mode job takes the edge off.

In the movie, Thank You for Smoking, there is a great scene where the main actors are sitting in a restaurant, and there's a sign just behind them that says:

"Be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can buy"

How sure can you be that your lobby is successful? Can you like 'buy' a politician, effectively a legal bribe, or is it more nuanced?

In the EU, a lot of laws are effectively written or co-authored by companies, which saves the politicians and their staffs incredible amounts of time and expertise. This must be quite expensive, just to have the lawyers on payroll who are able to do that.

If your company is literally writing the laws that will govern them, then yeah I'd say the lobby was successful.

I think there is a theme in this thread that misses a key aspect that I think Noam put well here -

https://youtu.be/1nBx-37c3c8?si=vA0IIew7ripABUTD

I think the idea that if an opposing idea went to an NRA friend and offered more money, in almost all cases they would refuse because the lobbying dollars aren’t to convince but to support someone who asked believes what you do.

In some cases, probably like crypto laws, a politician might think “sure I don’t care or have an opinion, you bought some donations and I don’t hate your opinion so I’ll help out”, but that is a lot different than “you pay me x and I vote y.”

I think taking the agency out of the politicians hands, in most cases, is the wrong perspective.

1) You’re right it’s cheaper than people think.

2) You aren’t going to move the needle much with 5 figures for anything at a national level.

The real work comes when you hire the congressman’s favorite PR firm for X and their cousins polling firm for Y and their former chief of staff for $15k a month retainer and so on. The vast majority of this gets done via “consulting” agreements and public relations firms and law firms, where the nominal work is irrelevant and the relationships and introductions are the product.

It's a downpayment, though. Political careers are often short; subsequently the politician will get a high paying 'job' at one of the firms funding the lobbying. That's the real payoff.

Wow!!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com