Scott Alexander had a few posts about that ("why is there so little money in politics?"): https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/tech-pacs-are-closing-in-on...

The Internet thinks that lobbying is bribery. If you wanted a bribery like vehicle, you'd just donate to a PAC or more recently, the new ballroom. Lobbying is just paying people to speak to politicians. After a company has said everything that wanted to every politician that can possibly support their cause, there isn't anything left for them to do.

"Emails from October 2005 show that after Mandelson complained to Epstein about a lack of British Airways air miles, Epstein offered to pay for his plane tickets to the Caribbean."[1]

The biggest shocker to me has been just how "cheap" a lot of people are to buy off. Mandelson is complaining about air miles FFS. So much of this is a few thousand here, some fancy tickets there, a jet ride elsewhere, etc. In my mind it was always much, much bigger sums that people were selling their countries & souls out for, sadly, it turns out a lot of people, even in really high positions, are shockingly cheap.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_of_Peter_Mandelso...