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As they say, if you owe a million dollars to the bank, the bank owns you. But if you owe a billion dollars to the bank, you own the bank.

When an institution becomes financially dependent on something for its revenues, that something gains a lot of power over the institution.

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> that something gains a lot of power over the institution.

Yeah, that hypothetical is terrifying! It's not like our entire government is in the pocket of the largest of these corporations anyway! That would be an entirely new scenario that we should avoid at all costs!

There are countries where the entire government is the pocket of the largest corporations. The US is not one of those countries. It can get much worse if you allow it.

We clearly disagree, but that's ok.

Just because you have a bee in your car doesn't mean you should ignore the hive growing in the trunk. It's silly to reject all threats because a less severe version of that threat already exists.

See, the problem with your analogy is, the way I see it, you are the one ignoring the hive in the trunk.

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