Those numbers are deceptive. For example, they lump the entire $9.2M spent by Boeing into the "defense" category. Boeing is a pretty diverse aerospace and services company. They sell to many more areas of the government than the DOD and have many more interests in government policy beyond acquisitions programs. Dumping all of their lobbying efforts into "defense" unfairly distorts the category, especially since that number alone represents 1/6 of it.
That's pretty significant - once you factor in their other revenue from private industry plus sales to foreign countries. So if you were going to categorize Boeing as anything in the context of the US gov alone, defense seems appropriate.
Additionally, even cutting that number in half (for the sake of accuracy) only reduces the total defense aerospace category by $4.6 million ($38m -> $33.4m total) which doesn't make those numbers drastically different, or that link much less persuasive.
> Boeing got 40% of their revenue from the DoD in 2007 according to WikiInvest and that probably hasn't changed much today:
The total revenue for for the entire Defense, Space, and Security portion of their business was only 30% of the company's total revenue, per their most recent 10-K filing. Further, reviewing previous filings it appears revenue for this segment has been flat for the past decade while revenue for their commercial aircraft operations has more than doubled.
Furthermore, I have no idea how that site arrived at the portion of revenue specifically from the DOD, as Defense, Space, and Security has a number of other government customers. All the sourcing information there is vague and generic.
> That's pretty significant - once you factor in their other revenue from private industry plus sales to foreign countries. So if you were going to categorize Boeing as anything in the context of the US gov alone, defense seems appropriate.
So, a company becomes a defense company just because most of it's government revenue comes from the DOD? It's not about "the context of the US gov alone", it's about the context of its government business with respect to its total business.
> Additionally, even cutting that number in half (for the sake of accuracy) only reduces the total defense aerospace category by $4.6 million ($38m -> $33.4m total) which doesn't make those numbers drastically different, or that link much less persuasive.
First, I would call cutting the total of the defense lobbying number by nearly 10% significant. Second, that is just an example. How many other Boeings are on that list? How much are they inflating that apparently simplistic analysis?
While I don't know the answer to your question, I have always had a similar reaction to seeing actual numbers involved in lobbying. It usually went like this: someone would seem outraged at how much money a representative had received from "the oil and gas industry". Then I'd look at the numbers and think to myself, "There's no way that amount of money could buy what people are claiming that it bought."
that is so sad all the stats in the link you posted. hopefully with the rise of the internet and everyone becoming connected we can raise awareness and not let things like that happen anymore.
