101–110 of 221 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> thing this time I'm sure it'll get reintroduced in a year or so, and if it doesn't get enough media attention, it'll pass. They only have to win once, we have to win every goddamn time.
The EU also has a right to privacy enshrined via the Treaty of Lisbon, so even if this law had got through the parliament somehow it should/would have been stuck down by the courts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have examples? Ideally related to digital things or privacy. (Thanks)
Privacy is an excellent example. At first it was locally dealt with, and big tech would lobby the individual countries for all kinds of exceptions and ways to effectively get regulatory capture. Then, in 1995 the EU created the DPD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive Big tech and the advertising industry responded by sidestepping the new regulation to make deals with the individual countries to u…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The short answer is that we're talking about the EU. Thats a US thing. As far as I can tell looking from the outside the US system is set up so that if you aren't ridiculously wealthy yourself you pretty much need lobbyist money to fund your campaign to get elected.
>As far as I can tell looking from the outside Out of curiosity, how accurately do you feel are the opinions of outsiders with no experience living in your country who comment on your country's state of affairs?
But outsiders have no emotional stakes in convincing themselves that your country is the best on earth. Consequently, I feel the non-US media are freer than US mass media to discuss the true state of American healthcare. Outsiders are less susceptible to your country's patriotic propaganda.
This does go both (or all) ways. The US are an example here, not a singular special case. Every country tries to convince its citizens that it's better than everywhere else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
Despite the lobbying from American organisations (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir and others who worked with Thorn on this [1][2]) the EU Parliament did the right thing this time. [1] https://www.thorn.org/partnerships/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130420162917/http://www.wearet...
The expert panel for this was truly a sight to behold, with majority representation coming from outside the EU (mostly american, but also canadian, new zealand and australian representation): https://twitter.com/SimoKohonen/status/1722635234116506052
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ?
Which moreover came with a fineprint specifying that it'd be illegal for browsers to warn users about certificate being swapped?
Is that out of the window for now too?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh it is called corruption - when you're talking second or third world countries. Same with "expats" vs "immigrants".
There's an objective difference between high corruption and low corruption countries though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index Let's not pretend that a slick lobbyist hired by vested interests to talk to representatives with no money changing hands is comparable to the stuff that goes down in high corruption countries, where there's literally briefcases full of cash given to politicians.
That's just a make-up, parfumerie on top of the same exact concept: use money in some way to corrupt decision making.
Just because in some countries it's done with a veneer of legitimacy, in a way that doesn't look as dirty and disgusting as "those other over there with their dirty hands full of bags of money", it's just corruption with a façade of high-class. It's still the same thing, just has more layers of indirection and make-up on top.