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Comment by makapuf | Hacker News Reader

You need both, and both are responsible for the current state.

To stop this, you need to try to stop both until one doesn't exists.

Lobbying is fine, though. Lobbying isn't bribery, although sometimes it probably looks like it. Lobbying is also an industry saying "please don't kill us; here's why that thing will kill us". The people making the decisions have the power (hence lobbyists need to exist) and they need to be better.

I will treat this comment charitably and just say that it's yet another case of "definition of X sounds good, so X can't be bad". I believe in reality it's less about "please don't kill us" and more about getting officials to set up the "pleas profit us" situation. Yes, money don't change hands in an office, so it's TECHNICALLY not a bribery.

Well, unlike regulators, companies die without profit. So they do indeed need profit. Smaller companies might want a system currently tilted against them to be changed. Larger companies might spend a fortune on regulation-following that has harmful outcomes, e.g. raising prices, for no benefit. Both of those motivations sound reasonable, and both getting their way may result in more profit for them. There's nothing wrong with profit.

The only thing that can possibly be bad is the regulation-writer, or the regulation enforcer, behaving incompetently and/or corruptly, who decides or enforces bad rules.

The revolving door between politician to made man (lobbyist) seems like a bit of a problem, no? These poor ex-politicians/staffers need to earn those mil+ salaries or they couldn’t effectively save these poor industries from demise? Perhaps the politician being asked to go easy on the regulations is potentially influenced by the ex-politicians rather lucrative position?

Corruption does not need to be overt to be destructive. It’s absolutely pervasive.

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