Don’t underestimate how cheap it actually is to buy politicians. A lot of Trump’s “big donors” who received billions of dollars worth of windfalls from his moves last term, were donors of a few million. Congress, too. Politicians are a very cheap investment compared to say, laying fiber covering a single metro area.

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Spooky23 a day ago | parent | next [-]

People don't realize this. At the State level, policy lobbying can yield concrete legislation for <$250k. For companies selling stuff, ~$60k/year gets you intros to civil service and some administration leadership.

In my city, I gave my local alderman $750 when he first ran. I have the guy's cell phone and the dude will fill potholes himself if I text him.

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Nextgrid 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Don’t underestimate how cheap it actually is to buy politicians

But if your idea becomes an extinction-level threat for a well-funded industry, surely they will also try to buy the politicians, getting into a bidding war with you, throwing their entire war-chest at the problem if necessary (knowing that thanks to their monopoly they have effectively forever to get it back).

	▲	xp84 a day ago \| parent [-]
		No dispute there, though sometimes the industry that could be negatively impacted by those bribes doesn't realize until it's too late. An example of this is "everyone who uses aluminum as a raw material for manufacturing" which is not an organized lobbyist group, which has been screwed over by tariffs during both Trump terms, despite being bigger in market cap and number of jobs impacted. Probably not the case with telecoms though -- they seem to have fully bought all the needed politicians already, so you're right on that front.