[governance] Facebook spent $4 million to lobby U.S. lawmakers in 2012

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Guru, even if the corporation is taxed on its previously untaxed 
activities it would still have more than enough to spend 15 to 20 
million dollars on lobbying activities.

These tend to go towards staff salaries, funding ngos and organizing 
conferences rather than wining and dining senators, whereas in other 
countries like say our very own india, the same amount, deposited 
anonymously in a minister or bureaucrat's numbered account in  a swiss 
bank would be the alternative for firms that don't care about the US 
foreign corrupt practices act, which has some serious teeth.

--srs (htc one x)



On 26 January 2013 9:18:41 AM Guru गुरु <Guru at ITforChange.net> wrote:
> On 01/26/2013 10:38 AM, Guru गुरु wrote:
> >
> >  On 01/26/2013 03:58 AM, Roland Perry wrote:
> >> In message <5102AD28.9090901 at ITforChange.net>, at 23:04:56 on Fri, 25
> >> Jan 2013, =?UTF-8?B?R3VydSDgpJfgpYHgpLDgpYE=?= <Guru at ITforChange.net>
> >> writes
> >>> you say 'different forms of democracy', is plutocracy another form
> >>> of democracy?
> >>
> >> Only if everyone in the country in question is wealthy. So Monaco,
> >> perhaps?
> >
> > Ronald,
> > then can you explain what you mean by 'different forms of democracy'
> > in which the lobbying power of money varies across countries?
> >
> > Also
> > "The word plutocracy is almost always used as a pejorative to describe
> > or warn against an undesirable condition,^[2]
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-2> ^[3]
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-3> and throughout
> > history political thinkers such as Winston Churchill
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill>, 19th-century French
> > sociologist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociologist> and historian
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historian> Alexis de Tocqueville
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville> and 19th-century
> > Spanish monarchist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchist> Juan
> > Donoso Cortés <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Donoso_Cort%C3%A9s>
> > have condemned those they characterize as plutocrats for ignoring
> > their social responsibilities
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_responsibility> to the poor,
> > _*using their power to serve their own purposes*_ and thereby
> > increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_conflict>, and corrupting their
> > societies with greed <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed> and hedonism
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism>.^[4]
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-4> ^[5]
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy#cite_note-5>
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy)
> >
> > *This seems to be the direction that US seems to be moving towards,
> > with the vastly disproportionate influence of the monied in policy
> > making.* This phenomenon is also true for most other countries
> > including India, but with most large IT transnationals being head
> > quartered in the US and with US domestic law unfortunately* the
> > defacto global law, the need/scope for policy lobbying/corruption is
> > much higher in the US.
> >
> > regards,
> > Guru
> > * I would think it axiomatic that global democracy will require a
> > league of nations and nationalities and not any one having any
> > pre-eminent position, so it is disappointing (though not surprising)
> > that we get responses on the list about 'US eminent role/ US
> > exceptionalism' being good or inevitable. To quote that great
> > American, Abraham Lincoln "No man is good enough to govern another man
> > without that other man’s consent", something many Americans on this
> > list and other nationals favoring US eminence in IG, may want to
> > ponder about.
>
> also on the same wiki page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
>
> " When the Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz> wrote the 2011 Vanity
> Fair magazine article entitled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%”, the
> title as well as the content pointed to evidence that the United States
> is increasingly ruled by the wealthiest 1%. .....  elites like to think
> of themselves as acting in the collective interest, even as they act in
> their personal vested interest. And so what I think you'll end up seeing
> is social mobility, which is already ;decreasing in the United States,
> being increasingly squeezed. You see particularly powerful sectors,
> finance, oil. *I would say the technology sector is going to be next in
> line, getting lots of government subsidies.*
>
> The scandalously low effective tax rates of the IT transnationals can
> also be seen as some kind of implicit subsidy ... and
> measures/experiments like that of the French Govt are required to help
> correct this situation - by reducing the lobbying power of these
> corporates and also getting the funding required by governments to
> support basic societal infrastructure, including soft infrastructure
> like public education and public health..
>
> regards,
> Guru
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