us citizen not a lawyer -- the problems you state are so obvious, that they ALSO have been a multi-decade effort, to mitigate or control, with real rules, that are enforced. Specifically so that shrill, not-on-your-side people cannot dismiss the Entire System in a few words, as here.

I am not a fan, nor making excuses, but its not constructive to oversimplify important, multi-step mechanisms

> they ALSO have been a multi-decade effort, to mitigate or control, with real rules, that are enforced

Source? In the global north, most regulatory bodies are understaffed and underbudget and cannot possibly even try to protect the public from vicious corporations. With the neoliberal wave of the 80s, there's been a merger of State and Corporations interests (what Mussolini called "corporatism") and millions of people have died as a result: from poverty, from work "accidents", from harmful chemicals advertised as medication, from industry pollution...

The people in the regulatory bodies are friendly with the corporate people. It's not uncommon for these bloodsuckers to jump from one field to the other and back again in about a decade.

To give one small example that's familiar with HN people: all of silicon valley hosts (GAFAM) were illegal by french privacy law (passed in 1978) yet they were all operating luxury offices in Paris and bribing engineers to come deceive/exploit the public.

I'm not a fan of defending defeatist worldview, but to believe that the State is here to protect people from corporations is an oversimplification. The regulation, corporate, and State people all come from the same higher classes, all went to the same schools, and eat in the same fancy restaurants in the same bourgeois districts. We lower people don't have the same interests as them, and they are well aware of that... are we?

yeah exactly this -- the United States specifically rejected the class status system from Royal Europe and Vedic India, and wrote law and legal precedence to defeat "the regulation, corporate, and State people all come from the same higher classes, all went to the same schools, and eat in the same fancy restaurants in the same bourgeois districts"

human nature has developed over thousands of years at least, so is this still true? partly of course. So, make the world you want to live in.. speak in public, write, participate in civil society.. When money is involved of course there is insider dealing.. and there is legal enforcement everyday .. pick an example, the female South Asian lead Attorney for New York somewhere, a Wall Street enforcer.. look for it, easy to find.

I am all for engagement, much less for repeating stories of old problems as if nothing has changed, right?

Lobbyists are overwhelmingly people who make PowerPoint presentations to Hill staffers. What do you think they are?

People who spend a lot of company money to take Hill people on lavish vacations and provide expensive meals and then show a PowerPoint presentation.

It's totally not bribery though, just good business.

Nah, all that stuff is illegal today. The bribery comes later in the form of, “hey, you worked with us on that bill, maybe you’d be a good board member! We pay $xxx,xxx per year to board members and they meet 4 times a year” or, “you know, without this legislation we could totally open a new factory in your state; say, doesn’t your cousin own a supply company there? I wonder what a new factory would do for his business…”

That’s legal in Europe too. Where’s Gerhard Schroeder these days?

Since you brought up Schröder imma make it pretty Germany specific: parties and candidates are much less reliant on fundraising. Coalition building makes bribing/lobbying certain parties way less efficient. Ranked party lists makes singular politicians less targetable for bribing/lobbying. And Schröder has become one of the least popular former chancellors due to his engagements in Russian oil corporations and with the war going on pretty universally a persona non grata

Congressional staffers aren’t allowed to accept meals from lobbyists. The rules are very strict, to the point where government employees will do stuff like kick in for the price of their meal at things like industry conferences.

That's of course what's legal "over the counter". Now look under the table and you find the real bribes. Just from the past decade of french politics i could name at least half a dozen major bribery/collusion scandals that resulted in no punishment for the criminals in power.

And of course, as someone else pointed out, you don't necessarily need to take a bribe right now when you know you can quit your job as a regulator to earn 6 digits working for industry. That's a common bargain with regulators, but it's not even just them. You could say the same about journalists, who at least here in France, often refrain from criticizing private propaganda machines (Lagardère/Bolloré/Bouygues/LVMH empires who control >50% of media) because they don't want to compromise their chances of getting a job with them later.

I remember learning during my ethics briefing (OMB, not congressional) that industry events frequented by feds and congressional staffers will oftentimes say on the invitation how much the catering will cost per person and provide a way for attendees to reimburse the event organizers. Most events will just serve coffee and muffins to avoid this (since it's generally considered kosher to take a small pastry and a beverage w/o needing to file an ethics disclosure or pay back the organizer).

I run into this all the time at industry events. The Congressional ethics rules draw the line at “”reasonable hors d'oeuvres” but not “full meals.”