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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Cisco reputedly avoided an anti-trust action by wining and dining DoJ lawyers

Source? (They settled with Multiven.)

> isn't it a bit naive to think it doesn't

No, it's naïve to think that level of influence can be bought. Not an uncommon mistake. Bankman-Fried made it, and it's increasingly looking like Bytedance did too. But D.C. is a town obsessed with power over money. People regularly toss aside lobbyists and their clients if it's politically expedient. In part because it's not like the lobbyists (or their clients) ditch them after being spurned.

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Well, you don't simply walk into a Patek Phillipe store and ask to see the watches. Enzo Ferrari refused to sell ferraris for people he didn't think were deserving of having a ferrari.

Corruption on the highest levels is very similar. Not everyone is on the buyers club.

...and here I went for hour and half rabbit hole of what/who is Patek Phillipe, and why you cannot get to their store...

Tell us your findings!

BTW, if you're not dressed properly, some high end stores have a security guard who won't let you in. This can get tricky these days, as many wealthy people dress like slobs.

I once wandered into Cartier's in NYC, dressed in my trademark slob clothes. The security guard tailed me about a foot behind me, obviously trying to intimidate me into leaving. I just kept me hands in me pocketses, took a look around, then left.

Oh, I did not go into the store, I am not that famous :). I just dove into Wikipedia, reading about their history, and different types of watches etc. Quite fascinating actually. I think these guys knew marketing before the term was born.

> Corruption on the highest levels is very similar. Not everyone is on the buyers club

This is unfalsifiable. To the extent electeds can be bought or lobbied, it's on the fringes--they didn't know about crypto and now they do and have a mildly favourable view towards it instead of not giving a shit. Certainly not around something involving the DoJ.

The naïve view is electeds in America can be bought and sold like a Patek Philippe. You can just buy one of those, for the simple reason that there exists a secondary market. Power, on the other hand, is perishable. Go back to Bankman-Fried's downfall and note how many people thought he had banked favours with his cash. (I sometimes think he thought he bought favours with his cash.) That isn't how D.C. works. It isn't how power centre works. Power is personal and perishable, and that makes it unique in comparison with the things we usually trade money for.

Customer selection is not corruption.

Ferrari still curates their customers. If you buy a Ferrari and paint it pink, you get on their "nope" list. You also cannot buy a new Ferrari today unless you have a previous relationship with them, or are very very rich.

>Customer selection is not corruption.

depends on the selection process, of course. At least in the US and I imagine most of the EU. You can paint a ferrari pink and get blacklisted. Not sure how it would go if they say they don't sell to women...

> You also cannot buy a new Ferrari today unless you have a previous relationship with them

If you want the super special stuff like Monza SP1/2 or Daytona SP3 you need a longstanding relationship with Ferrari, but you can walk into a showroom and drive out with a 296 or Roma this afternoon if you have the cash, and let's not pretend a 296 isn't a very special car.

> Source?

An article I read around 2000 about why the DoJ didn't go after Cisco, despite Cisco having a monopolistic position at the time.

Sorry I don't have a photographic memory.

> it's naïve to think that level of influence can be bought.

Not at all. Where do you think the money for the Clinton Foundation came from, for example?

>Where do you think the money for the Clinton Foundation came from, for example?

Bill attended Georgetown and Yale (where he met Hilary), was governor of Arkansas for 12 years and had a short stint of running the country before the foundation was founded. Hilary was a director at a school of law and worked under Carter's administration, and had decades of other legal feats before entering the senate right after founding the foundation.

If those two can't network in those 30 years for funds, then America as a whole is a sham.

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