The article discusses this- excess buys and market volatility lead to increased capital requirements by clearing houses, so it wasn't necessarily specific to robinhood.
When powerful people need to bend the rules, they don't do it outright. They find cover. And if there's any discretion in how much liquidity clearinghouses require, that's what they'll modify.
You'll see similar things when influence is sold. Speakers are given huge fees for basic speeches and then they know what they should do. Nothing is spelled out, because that would be dumb.
Are you saying that influence either isn't sold or is spelled out in explicit terms when it is? Why do pharm reps take medical residents out to expensive dinners in nice parts of town (pre-covid), are they just nice people?
Giving someone a nice dinner isn’t giving them a lot of money, though. You get influence by not paying people enough that they can leave, but making it seem like you might in the future.
And yes, most marketing spending is pointless, and that’s just another kind of marketing.
