Why does it seem so cheap to buy Washington influence? I've never understood this, and have always felt like I must be missing something.

a16z has 60 billion AUM. $560k vs $1.47mm is completely meaningless, yet it seems like most of the time I'm reading these stories, the huge multinational consortium lobbying fees can be counted in increments of $500k/15 minutes of income.

Granted, that has changed recently with more traditional style international bribing, but the uniquely American lobbying angle has always bewildered me a bit.

Presumably, most of the transactional value is contained in connections and relationships which can't quantified, and the actual "lobbying fees" are performative bowties.