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Bogus Experts Fight Your Right To Broadband
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 31, 2006 09:05 PM
from the just-gimme-a-pipe dept.
from the just-gimme-a-pipe dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "Karl Bode of Broadband Reports takes aim at supposed telecom experts and think tankers who profess to love the 'free market,' but want to ban the country's un-wired towns and cities from offering broadband to their residents. If you didn't know, incumbent providers frequently determine towns and cities unprofitable to serve (fine), but then turn around and lobby for laws that make it illegal to serve themselves (not so fine). They then pay experts to profess their love for a free market and deregulation — unless that regulation helps their bottom line. A simple point: 'Strange how such rabid fans of a free-market wouldn't be interested in allowing market darwinism to play out.'"
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Not really anything new (Score:2, Interesting)
What we really see here are Statists who use the words "free market" are just pro-State pundits who, as the anonymous reader wrote, are paid to profess support for their employers while sounding pro-freedom.
This is no different than war supporters who think that soldiers and previous war protect freedo
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Well that smacks of black and white thinking, doesn't it? You mean there's no middle ground between those two?
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It's useless to round all fuzzy values to 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
If false is the law of the jungle and true is totalitarianism, then whether a particular enterprise is regulated by the state is a fuzzy-valued membership function [wikipedia.org], not a boolean-valued indicator function [wikipedia.org]. The prohibitions of murder and bank robbery are state regulations; therefore, all business is state regulated to some degree. Your way of defuzzifying [wikipedia.org] this, by rounding all fuzzy values greater than false to true, makes your logic useless.
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Re:Not really anything new (Score:4, Insightful)
But what if the State does the opposit of helping - i.e enact regulations that shift the burden from the taxpayer to the private corporation, and make corporations responsible for actions like pollution and product safety? That's not "free" and it's not "helping" - so I guess there must be more than two options, huh?
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Yeah. Because businesses like paying license fees, taxes, tariffs, and duties, and having their goods embargoed.
TIME OUT! Hi, Slashdot. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that YOU, too, Slashdotters, can vote against the American two-party system in the upcoming electi
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"Business" as such, is indeed hurt by these. But don't make the fallacy of composition -- specific businesses can certainly benefit from them through elimination or hindering of rivals. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley -- ostensibly to promote a fair environment -- actually imposes disproportionate costs on smaller businesses. ExxonMobil can easily adjust its finance department to comply. A newer f
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Socialism: 1 : any of vario
Free (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, I'm shocked that you would think that states should be forbidden to provide services THAT THE FREE MARKET DOESN'T PROVIDE. Small towns can't get high-speed, because no merchants want to provide it. It's not worth it. But if the people of that state feel that they want that service, and are willing to pay for it, what's wrong with them banding together to set that service up themselves? Should construction firms be able to pass laws preventing you and your neighbour from collaborating to build a tool shed that you can then share? A state is no different from you and neighbour working together -- it simply occurs at a larger scale.
Finally, state-run businesses don't necessarily interfere with the functioning of competitors. Frequently, governments will create an organization to supply some service that the free market doesn't provide, and then once it has been established, they split it up and sell it off to merchants who are willing to run these services now that they've been established and proven.
Socialism vs Capitalism isn't a one-or-the-other choice. There are productive balances that can be achieved between total government management of everything and slavery to an oligarchy of industrialists.
But seriously -- how do YOU think small towns should get services like broadband, water-purification plants, sewer systems, and whatnot?
Lastly -- "neoliberal Senators who think that minimum wage laws protect the freedoms of workers"?! You sir, are officially a retard. Neoliberalism is exactly the opposite of that. Neoliberalism is the philosophy that YOU are endorsing in your post -- that of total deregulation. Sorry man, but you're a neoliberal. I know, I know, anything associated with the word "liberal" is automatically evil because of that association with freedom, but deal with it.
Parent
Re:Free (Score:5, Interesting)
1: Socialism and capitalism are coexisting RIGHT NOW. Unless you believe that your ridiculous anarchist fantasy could survive the predations of organized nations using just its privatized, non-communist military. Every nation has a completely communist, authoritarian military. The military produces no goods and subsists entirely off of taxation of the labour of real people. The same goes for the police, and indeed the government itself. Are we socialist? Hardly. You don't have to choose, and anyone who suggests otherwise is just some kind of deranged fanatic that's one pamphlet away from assasinating people and blowing up buildings.
What the hell do you call that, if not a government? It may not be a federal or state government, but it's people organizing and consolidating money and power to accomplish goals. That's government (probably municipal in this case). That's why anarchy never works. People invariably want to gather together to accomplish goals that they couldn't achieve on their own. Rather than waste all their time overseeing every aspect of the project, they appoint a few people to manage it while everyone else just contributes resources and gets back to their own work. Now they have a government and taxes.
Centuries of ... human nature have made us accept that organization is natural, unavoidable, and overwhelming. The most organized group will, at best, assimilate the rest; as often as not, it will annihilate them.
I work for a living. I work fucking hard at shitty jobs to pay for school so that I can do better, more valuable jobs at some point. Unlike the cowards I deal with everyday, paying a few taxes doesn't reduce me to fits of crying and impotence. I drive our roads, I use our sewer systems. I benefit from a government that defends the border and fights crime without my needing a personal bodyguard. I benefit from the fact that the government stomps monopolies and prevents them from price-fixing or creating (much) artificial scarcity. We've seen anarchy -- anarchy is the five minutes before a warlord enslaves you and your family and puts you to work picking opium poppies at gunpoint. Anarchy is the window of opportunity for the worst kinds of government to establish themselves. Anarchy is so monstrous that it convinces everyone to put power into the hands of a despotic church or a monarchy, and thanks them for the safety of slavery.
So you know what? I'll take the minor hassle of a few taxes, and having to fill out a few forms now and then. It's that, or paying ten times as much in protection money to the local organized crime ring that has a monopoly on security and murders anyone that tries to compete.
The real crux of it is that democracy trumps economics. If 50%+1 of the people say that we should all pay taxes for a health care system, we do it. If 50%+1 of the people say we turn the rest into dog food, we do it. There are balances to prevent rash, insane changes, but ultimately the people can do anything. The people want a national bank to buffer against economic fluctuations (imagine if entire military had to be sold for scrap everytime there was a downturn), so we do it. The people don't want losing a job or becoming too sick to work to be a death-sentence, so we establish a welfare system. The people don't want to have the spend time and money doing background checks into supposed hospitals and doctors everytime they have a medical emergency, so the government regulates hospitals and medical licensing. Are you tyrant enough to say that we should cast aside democracy because of your weak spine in the face of a deduction from your paycheque -- a paycheque that is already being scaled-up to take that deduction into account?
Only a fanatic suggests that an issue is black-and-white. There are always middle grounds. That's why
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Confusion & the 'Free Market' (Score:2)
Re:Confusion & the 'Free Market' (Score:2, Funny)
Computer science majors are easy to confuse. Just ask them how to ask out a girl.
Re:Confusion & the 'Free Market' (Score:3, Informative)
It is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Throwing them to the wolves, however is not Socialism, therefore it must be good.
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like this ;-)
You're oversimplifying (Score:5, Insightful)
Paying Haliburton and other US contractors to rebuild Iraq--that's not socialism. The discriminator is this--who makes the money? If money is being spread among a bunch of little people, then that's socialism. If money is poured into a few large corporations whose executives make tens or hundreds of millions, then that's the free market. If it's profitable for the rich, it's the free market, but if you're giving money to a single mother of 2, then that's socialism. If you're helping the working poor pay their medical bills, that's socialism, and probably creeping totalitarianism.
But we can brag on TV about building schools for Iraqis, and that's NOT socialism. But--you guess it--large American corporations have won contracts to rebuild those schools, along with those huge military bases over there. What is an what is not socialism has more to do with who gets to pocket the money than it does with any fidelity to Karl Marx. Care to look into how much federal money was spent rebuilding New Orleans, compared to how much is spent on rebuilding Iraq? If you spend money in New Orleans, then small local firms may get some of the contracts, and the money may be spent, and most importantly earned, locally. If you spend in Iraq, all of the money goes into the coffers of large companies with sweetheart deals, such as Haliburton.
Small mom-and-pop contractors don't have contacts in the Department of Defense and White House. But if you get big enough, you get to engage in nation-building as part of someone's "vision," like PNAC, and then that isn't socialism, even if you're building the very things that WOULD be socialism if you were building it for Americans back home.
Parent
Re:You're oversimplifying (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'm aware of the textbook definition of socialism, thanks, but I was referring to the seemingly obvious fact that if you want to fund infrastructure (water plants, hospitals, power plants) with public funds, the same people who have no problem rebuilding Iraq will complain about encroaching socialism. If you're so concerned about it being a "handout" to give a poor single parent money to live, then institute work programs, and then you'll have the goods and services you care about. But no one is interested in any programs whose main beneficiaries are poor people.
Of course, $100 given to a poor single mother will be pushed right back into the economy, creating just as many jobs as $100 given to Raytheon or some other weapons manufacturer. But everyone acts as if poor people burn their money in little bonfires, forgetting that a dollar spent by a bum is just as good at creating jobs as a dollar spent by a CEO. We basically just worship success, so we funnel money to big corporations as if we need more weapons. Hell, Congress just reauthorized weapons that the DoD said they didn't even need! So yes, the weapons companies are providing goods and services, but if we're buying goods and services we don't really need, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, then that's morally no different than paying poor people $2000 a month to pick up litter. It's just a wealth redistribution program, only one that gets the nod from the "I love the free market" types, while the other is labeled as "big government." Give me a break.
Parent
Re:You're oversimplifying (Score:4, Insightful)
The Iraqi construction companies built the country in the first place, and the american government destroyed it. American companies shouldn't be profiting at the expense of Iraq, Iraq should be compensated for their losses and this compensation should go into the local economy.
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Just business (Score:2)
The customer first fad is over. (Score:2)
Until you have signed up with them, they will do everything the can to make you feel like you are coming first, then as soon as they have you, they give you a number and tell you to wait in line.
Market darwinism... (Score:4, Funny)
It makes me wonder (Score:2)
You gotta fight (Score:2)
to brooaaaadband.
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for your right
to brooaaaadband.
Broadband is not a right, but partying is.
Bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I have direct experience with this in the dialup market in Altoona PA in the late '90s. If you weren't happy with the sponsored ISP, tough luck. The small ISPs pulled out when they couldn't compete with Joe Taxpayer. I worked for one of those ISPs.
You want municipal wireless? Fine, but understand that means you'll ONLY get whatever products and quality of service your town's government is capable of. Servers and static IPs? Ho ho, good luck. And you'll be the last town in the nation to get anything better.
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The current trend is for municipalities to take bids from private companies. It's the same way a lot of government services operate ... you don't think there's an office at city hall where a guy interviews ironworkers for jobs building bridges, do you? I have faith that at least some of the companies [com.com] that are interested in building out and servicing
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Now, why should a private company, whose main responsibility is to make profits for their shareholders, voluntarily upgrade their technology, particularly when they enjoy a monopoly in their service area? And you assume that a local government, whose main responsibility and accountability is to their citizens (who can vote them out every few years) would not be responsive to changes in technology?
Are you sure you aren't automatically assuming government = bad, priva
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Free wifi is nice, but if it boils down to dial-up speeds because of sub-standard equipment and implementation, then there will be a market for premium services. I can even envision the advertising "Tired of not being able to use your VoIP phone and comput
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I mean, how many people have plastic surgery, eh? Even though you could get a better product (improved looks), it costs you money, it's risky, and it's a pain in the neck. So most people decide their 'free' physical appearance is just good enough.
Or say, you can chose to pay $300 for a retail copy of Win XP, or you could keep a pre-installed free OS (equivalent or better), which one would you chose? It becomes especially tough to sell you something when you get all the fre
Government competing with industry ? free market (Score:3, Insightful)
Government "competing" with industry is not a free market and there is no "market darwinism" to play out. Of the two competitors here, one can confiscate any amount of money they choose from everyone to pay for their service. It doesn't matter if anyone wants it, they need no voluntary "customers." They take whatever money they want and provide whatever service they want.
Pretending that a company can compete with government, where government forces everyone to pay for their service, is a terrible twist of the word "competition." It's like saying that Wendy's can "compete" with McDonalds if the government passes a new law that everyone has to pay to eat all their meals at McDonalds, and then can show up and get the food they already had to pay for for no additonal charge. In order to go to Wendy's, you have to also buy a McDonalds meal and throw it away. That's not "free market competition."
Note that I'm not saying anything in this post about whether or not municipalities should be allowed to offer internet access, or (and this is an entirely separate issue) whether or not they should do so. I'm just saying that calling government "competition" with free enterprise companies some sort of free market is absurd. It's not competition when one of the competitors gets to force everyone to "buy" their product, can charge whatever they want, can loose any amount of money without fear of going out of business, can provide any service and quality level with no effect on revenue, and can tax and regulate their competitors. Yes, there are some areas where a company manages to service the same sector government services in a different way, and I'm not saying it's impossible that some people would pay for another internet service even after paying for the government one, especially if the government one is run as badly as many government things are. But even if a lot of people end up paying for both the mandatory government service and a second, private service, it's still not free market competition.
Re:Government competing with industry ? free marke (Score:2)
That's maybe true in a totalitarian state, but less so in real-world US of A.
Take the Post Office, for example. It's technically a g
Re:Government competing with industry ? free marke (Score:2)
Substitute 'free market' for 'shareholder equity' (Score:2)
The low-hanging fruit of public assets-- the big cities-- are easy pickings. High-density infrastructure pays first. Rural areas and marginal density suburban areas pay less and cost more. Gone is the
DUH! (Score:2)
Net neutrality (Score:2)
Universal truth... (Score:2, Informative)
My history teacher told us that there are three keys to understanding American history:
1. Great Britain.
2. People are stupid.
3. Follow the money.
Great Britain doesn't apply here, of course, but the other two are universal...this article is news, but it isn't new. We should expect people to do things entirely for profit. And we should expect people to be blatantly two-faced. Plato or Aristotle or someone like that said that "Those who are too sm
Re:Universal truth... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
"Right to Broadband" - ????? (Score:2)
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Large ISPs deploy broadband first (only?) in big cities, where there are lots of potential customers in a small area, producing lots of revenue for their investment. They haven't had a lot of interest - yet - in deploying in small towns and out in the spaces between towns.
Some towns have gotten tired of waiting for some company to decide to wire them for broadband, and have tried to set up their own, local, town-owned-and-op
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Maybe there ought to only be laws against lying about having a license or something. That's a tough issue for me. I haven't decided.
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A person should be allowed to do whatever he/she wishes, but must be held accountable for any resulting damage.
I'm nominally a Libertarian, and this extremity of thought still bothers me. Sometimes, after-the-fact consequences just don't cut it. Occasionally, regulations in a tiny collection of areas can save many lives, without the attendant loss of critical freedoms. I agree generally with the idea that we have drawn the standard of what ought to be regulated far too loosely, but there are still a fe
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Without (government) regulation, reputable doctors and health care providers would likely form their own associations which would certify that people were actually competent to practice medicine. And what's more, they might actually be run by medical experts rather than politicians and bureaucrats.
I can't believe after the last 200 years of history that anyone has the gall to make this argument with a straight face.
We had unregulated medicine. Throughout the 19th century. And what did we get? A bunch o