Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Regulatory capture by the Oligarths

Today, the CTIA wireless association (Cellular industry lobby group) announced that Meredith Baker will be taking over as CEO. You may remember her as the Comcast executive/FCC Commissioner. She's replacing Steve Largent, a former Congress member, who replaced Tom Wheeler.


Tom Wheeler, the current chairman of the FCC, is not only the ex-CEO of the CTIA, he's also the ex-president of the NCTA (National Cable & Telecommunications Association, i.e. Cable Lobby). The NCTA is currently chaired by ex-FCC Chairman Michael Powell.


Baker went from an employee in the CTIA, to the government (Commerce Dept.), as a stepping stone to the FCC. After approving the Comcast/NBC merger, she gets a job as an executive at the newly merged Comcast. She does that for three years, and heads back to CTIA as the CEO.

But don't worry, to prevent her from having an undue influence on all her lifelong friends at the FCC, she can't lobby them for 2 whole years! Members of Congress are fair game though.

With such an incestuous relationship among the FCC and the top lobbyists among the companies they regulate, is there any doubt about regulatory capture?