Power and Free Broadband To the People 262
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes Slashdot member and open source developer Ben Kallos @KallosEsq — who is now a NYC Councilman — is pushing to make it a precondition to Comcast's merging with Time Warner that it agree to provide free broadband to all public housing residents in the City (and by free I mean free as in beer). Kallos, along with NY's Public Advocate, Letitia James, is leading a group of state and local politicians calling on Comcast to help bridge the digital divide in NY.
Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:4, Interesting)
Just look at the loving way in which the residents of "free" public housing maintain their residences out of gratitude to the all-caring government.
Truly, public housing solved poverty to exactly the same degree that free broadband will "solve" the digital divide. I'm sure that the upstanding U.S. citizens who live in public housing will take it upon themselves to learn how to code and contribute Open Source software to the world in complete gratitude for this benevolent entitlement.
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I'm sure that the upstanding U.S. citizens who live in public housing will take it upon themselves to learn how to code and contribute Open Source software to the world in complete gratitude for this benevolent entitlement.
A new Motorola cable modem/wifi router buys how much crack?
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I lived in many an apartment building, and I always had to get my own cable modem (or lease it from Time-Warner).
Not sure how public housing works in NY, but around here "public housing" means you go rent a normal apartment, and the gov't pays for the rent (a gov't agency sends a check every month to your landlord)
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Yes. But at the same time, some apartment complexes do have their own cable tv, internet, etc. that is included in the rent, at least here in a college town. As do several of the "old folks not quite nursing home apartment dwelling" places around here.
So yeah, if everyone in the building is gonna get it, makes sense to just make it part of the building.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Insightful)
And here comes science [wiley.com] to take your stupid politicized assumptions about what good public housing does and flush them down the shitter. Public housing shows serious reductions in intergenerational poverty against control populations facing similar problems.
Now the best results come from people who temporarily reside in public housing and move into low/middle income housing after a few years, and the worst results come from people who face dual problems of mental illness or addiction in addition to homelessness, but that's not the boogeyman you're trying to take down.
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I wish I had mod points to mod you up
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Informative)
http://salvationarmynorth.org/... [salvationarmynorth.org]
It's even better than that. It turns out just giving homeless people homes saves money for states.
So...
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I wonder how much money the government would save if they worked with banks to "give" (temporarily loan) some of the empty, foreclosed houses out to homeless people. We've got a bunch of people without houses, and a bunch of houses without people. Seems kind of obvious to me.
Provide shelter with a few basic stipulations. No illegal activity (e.g. drugs) and general upkeep on the house. Provide them with brooms, simple green and such. "You clean it up and fix a leaky faucet or two, and the house is yours
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Sorry, but the overruns and abuses of some programs wasn't the argument I was taking apart. Just the wrong things the OP said.
No more. No less.
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Good citation.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management >
The long-term effects of public housing on self-sufficiency
Sandra J. Newman and Joseph M. Harkness
Article first published online: 17 DEC 2001
DOI: 10.1002/pam.1038
Volume 21, Issue 1, pages 21–43, Winter 2002
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed an intensification of the debate about the fundamental purpose of public assistance to the poor and the effects of these programs on children. This study uses enriched data from the Panel Study of Income
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Sorry you don't recognize controlled natural experiments, but that's your problem, not mine.
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If you don't recognize that in this society those without computer access are at a disadvantage, you are as stupid as you are uncaring.
BS, they just use their iPhone (Score:2)
Seems like every person in line in front of me at the grocery store using foodstamps has two or three kids with them and every one of them has an iPhone, usually two generations newer than my own.
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They probably have a newer and nicer car than you. I remember as a teen, going to visit a girl form school who lived in a low income government housing project. My 15 year old beater was actually in decent shape (faded paint, no dents, tires matched and had decent tread, engine ran smooth) but everyone at the complex had a 5 year old or newer car and some actually made fun of mine.
Some mysteries in life will never get solved I guess. I delivered pizzas for a while too and saw all sorts of nice and new cars
You're right (Score:3)
A Department of Energy Survey [www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2009/#undefined], includes a part of which breaks down appliance use in US homes by household Income.
For example it states that 16.9M households are below the poverty line, and of those 15.6M have microwaves, 8.6M have coffee makers, 10.6M have top-door (top freezer) refrigerators, 1.8M have a 2nd refrigerator, 3,9M have a separate freezer, 4.8M have a dishwasher, 10.9M have a clothes washer in their home.
For TVs, of the 16.9M household
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shutup. just shut the fuck up.
you neither know you are talking about, nor have any valid point to make.
its not about solving the digital divide any more than the housing thing is about solving poverty.
its been widely and clearly shown that there is an increase in opportunity and outcomes between homes with and home without internet access.
you're essentially complaining about improving someones potential opportunities to enrich themselves and make their life better and maybe even get out of that housing you
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shutup. just shut the fuck up. you neither know you are talking about, nor have any valid point to make. its not about solving the digital divide any more than the housing thing is about solving poverty. its been widely and clearly shown that there is an increase in opportunity and outcomes between homes with and home without internet access. you're essentially complaining about improving someones potential opportunities to enrich themselves and make their life better and maybe even get out of that housing you mock. but again, you have no valid point, so therefore theres little sense in talking sense, like pointing out to you that without subsidized housing many of these people would be on street, homeless, increasing both crime rates and homeless and deaths among the impoverished. Theoretically we are a civilized nation. But a civilized nation doesnt advocate intentionally making it harder if not impossible for those most disadvantaged to improve themselves, nor advocate for them to die quickly and get out of the way.
Well spoken, bro
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that being the case, we have a responsibility to make sure the basic needs of everyone are met.
Who is "we" ?
What definition of "basic needs" are we using today?
" Everyone" meaning 100%
What defines "are met" ?
I am pretty sure that your definition and my definition of "basic need" are different. I would consider sex to be a basic need, that everyone should have, and not everyone's needs are being met.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Informative)
At my son's grade school, it was a different story. They had a substantial number of kids whose families were below the poverty line and for whom Internet access could not be assumed. I was on the leadership council and the lack of Internet access for many families caused a lot of difficulties for the school both in terms of the educational materials that could be provided and in terms of communicating with parents.
It is my opinion that poverty is partially systemic. Our economic system depends on there being a pool of available workers (unemployed and underemployed). So as long as there is capitalism and a functioning free market, there will always be poor people. That being the case, we have a responsibility to make sure the basic needs of everyone are met. Increasingly in order to succeed in school and in life, Internet access isn't really a luxury.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is my opinion that poverty is partially systemic. Our economic system depends on there being a pool of available workers (unemployed and underemployed). So as long as there is capitalism and a functioning free market, there will always be poor people. That being the case, we have a responsibility to make sure the basic needs of everyone are met. Increasingly in order to succeed in school and in life, Internet access isn't really a luxury.
Well said
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You know that you don't have to just add useless and uninteresting words to something that already had substance, right? At least borrow some quotes from Socrates' Dialogues to spice things up: There is admirable truth in that. That is not to be denied. That appears to be true. All this seems to flow necessarily out of our previous admissions. I think that what you say is entirely true. That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion. To that we are quite agreed. By all means. I entirely agree and go along with you in that. I quite understand you. I shall still say that you are the Daedalus who sets arguments in motion; not I, certainly, but you make them move or go round, for they would never have stirred, as far as I am concerned. If you're going to say _nothing_, at least be interesting about it, post anonymously, or risk looking more clueless / foolish. This is why the moderation system is in place, and mods typically don't listen to inanities like "Well said" when deciding on what to spend their points.
1. I'm too busy to sit around thinking up additional words to throw in so I can score "mod" points
2. The people I like on Slashdot are too busy to read a bunch of additional words I only threw in so I can score "mod" points
3. It's not in my nature to waste words, or to waste time
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Which no doubt explains the abysmal standard of living in the Soviet Union back in the day - too capitalistic....
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Uh, hello genius, capitalistic enterprises can't hire people with no skills. You know how many welfare recipients can't even show up to work on time?
Employers hire unskilled people all the time and pay them accordingly. Education and experience are vehicles for becoming more skilled. Increasingly educational institutions expect students to have Internet access.
There are lots of different types of people on welfare for various reasons. When you're poor, transportation and child care can be barriers to employment. But even if some people on welfare are just plain lazy, I'd like it if their kids still had an opportunity to be contributing members of soc
Free housing could work (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is in the US working poor didnt qualify for free housing so basically what happened is you concentrated utter poverty in a small area.
Combine that with inadequate security, poor maintenance and shoddy construction you have a recipe for disaster. So right now
working poor pay well over 30% of their salary for rent. What would they do if they didnt have the heavy rent loads? They would spend it on consumer goods like washers and dryers and cars and perhaps even save for the down payment for a house. So an argument could be made that public housing might
in the long run stabilize home prices and improve the economy.
In Europe mainstream families live in public housing so public housing doesnt have the stigma that it has in the US so economic activity is maintained
near public housing in europe because you have working families who spend money not just welfare recipients. Also because working families
vote political interests have a vested interest in maintaining the quality of public housing.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't been to much public housing in New York City. We've had public housing for over 100 years. It's good housing. During the 1920s, the unions built housing for their members.
The Wall Street Journal did a story on public housing a few years ago. The reporter thought it would be a mess. He was surprised to find out that it was pretty good housing. The residents liked public housing.
The residents were almost all working, mostly middle-class working people. Teachers, bus drivers.
They were black, however. I realize conservatives don't like it when black people get anything.
The NYC government actually produced housing projects more cheaply than the private developers, with lower rent, and the projects paid for themselves. It's a lot cheaper to build housing when you don't have to pay for the profits of a billion-dollar real estate consortium.
During WWII, NYC built housing for workers, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, etc. When you really need housing, you can't depend on the free market. It worked so well that they continued to build public housing after the war. That was Frederich Hayek's nightmare -- during wartime, people would see how efficiently the government worked, and they'd want the government to continue after wartime.
The main problem for public housing is that it worked so well that the Republicans are trying to destroy it.
For example, they passed the Fairclough amendment, which prohibits the construction of new public housing. They can tear down old public housing, but not build new units. They've been tearing down public housing throughout the country. NYC is one of the few places where the tenants have fought to preserve it.
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I'm sure that the upstanding U.S. citizens who live in public housing will take it upon themselves to learn how to code and contribute Open Source software to the world in complete gratitude for this benevolent entitlement.
Some of them already do, you fucking idiot.
I've been to their homes.
Kids live in city projects and go to Stuyvesant. Lots of programmers live in the projects.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Informative)
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You're conflating a specific unspecified job with a job in general.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Informative)
I invite you to make high school only resume and try to get a full time job in your area. It is not as easy as you think. Even if you are driven, intelligent, and motivated, and many of the people in question are not.
10M self-employed people beg to differ (Score:2)
Self-employed people have no problem with the fact that their employee may not have a college degree. They didn't wait around for someone to hand them a job.
No one said it was easy, and you're spot on with your last statement: many of the people in question are not driven, intelligent or motivated.
If you have no drive or motivation (aren't those the same thing?), even if you are intelligent, you will almost certainly fail. Why should the rest of us bend over backward to compensate for the shortcomings of un
Re:10M self-employed people beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the rest of us bend over backward to compensate for the shortcomings of unmotivated people with no drive to better themselves?
Who says they lack 'drive'?
How many people have REALLY had to raise themselves up from their bootstraps?
Not me, that's for sure. I'm smart enough, I'm successful enough, I'm self employed... but my parents gave me access to computers and the internet from the beginning, I was encouraged in school, they helped me pay for university, they drove me to my first job interview, helped me get to and from work by driving me and picking me up as much as they could (10 minutes by car vs 1.5 hours or more by bus) until I had my own car, got me driving lessons and let me use their cars to practice, and my first 'real job' in my field ... my father knew people and got me connected.
Sure I'm motivated... sure I took the initiative to transition from employee to contractor, I worked and went to school full time, I paid most of my tuition myself, bought my own car... but I had plenty of help.
If I'd been born to poor parents with little drive of their own, in public housing, with no internet or computers, no one helping me get and hold my first jobs... would I be where I am today? Most probably not. Even if I had the same amount of "drive"; it might not have been "enough" drive to get from there to where I am now.
So yeah, I think its worth giving people in those circumstances a little help to break out of that cycle. Maybe they aren't all as unmotivated as you think. Maybe they have just as much drive as you or I do but have have much bigger obstacles to climb.
Especially as it is a cycle. The lack of success makes it difficult to self motivate, that difficulty self motivating further limits prospects of success. So, yeah, give them access to the internet -- some of them will use it to find jobs, some of their kids will use it to educate themselves and find and develop opportunities they never would have otherwise had.
Why not?
What is your alternative? Ignore them? What is that going to accomplish? It not like they will all just go away. Its not like the problem will solve itself by magic.
And if things get bad enough for enough of them eventually they rise up in a mob and burn down the homes of those who have anything. History has shown us that countless times. So if you still need a self-interested reason to make life livable for your fellow citizens, how about, "If you don't sooner or later they'll get desperate enough and angry enough to burn your house down, with you in it."
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If I'd been born to poor parents with little drive of their own, in public housing, with no internet or computers, no one helping me get and hold my first jobs... would I be where I am today?
I would like to think that if I had the drive I have now but been born to poor parents in the slums, I would work my way up to drug kingpin. But upon further reflection, I think I would likely have been killed in my late teens or early twenties.
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Re:10M self-employed people beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)
The soundest reasons for effective social services to support those that fail in the psychopathically competitive society of capitalism are it is cheaper than prison and it makes up for the theft of subsistence existence. The right of every living thing to gain access to and survive off the environment that is stolen by the artificial construct of ownership and exclusion.
Only fools think they are "bending over backward" because they completely fail to look out the outcomes of the various social services models around the world. Straight up and without any room for argument is the fact the greater and more supportive the social services the more stable and crime free the society that provides them. Reduce social services and you increase crime, the forced need to survive when the ability to survive off the environment has been denied and no alternatives provided. The get a job rant when there are no jobs is stupid. Just as daft is if there are no jobs become self employed, when self employed people are just as unemployed as everyone else when there is no work to contract.
Social services keep the economy ticking over while recovery occurs, else economic collapse is the result of the downward spiral of less services are required, driving greater unemployment, resulting in less services required.
The real solution to many of societies most pressing problems is not the crazy elimination of social support services but the elimination of the psychopaths and narcissist that do not see themselves as a part of their overall human society along with everyone else but see themselves as competitors or more accurately predators preying upon the rest. Remember it is not in reality dog eat dog, dogs are smart enough to cooperate and work as a pack, it is rabid dog eat rabid dog, only sick dogs seek to prey upon other dogs.
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Thank you. You are quite correct.
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$22T spent in the war on poverty over the the last 50 years in the US. Poverty level essentially unaffected for the last 45 of those 50 years.
People are smart enough the cooperate too. It's called charity. The problem the progressive socialist movement seems to have with charity is a) it is not forced on people by the state, therefore it "can never work" and b) it by its nature discriminates in favor of the deserving poor and against those who choose not to try. It is true that charity will never meet the e
Re: Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Informative)
MacDowels
Yeah, right.
The New York Times compared Hampus Elofsson, 24, who works for Burger King in Copenhagen, Denmark, with Anthony Moore, shift manager at Burger King, Tampa, FL. Elofsson makes 20 an hour, time and a half for overtime and Sundays, has enough for a night out with his friends and a savings account (plus government health care). Moore makes $9 an hour for a 35-hour week, gets $164 a month in food stamps, is behind on his bills, can't buy clothes for his kids, and can't afford Burger King's health plan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10... [nytimes.com]
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I'll have a Big Mic please.
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... there just not enough jobs for everyone...
You're conflating a specific unspecified job with a job in general.
Unless magically the number of specific unspecified jobs is larger than the number of jobs, I really don't think he is.
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Insightful)
All of us owe our existence to the big, free handout from the sun. Without that huge source of free, yes, free energy, known as sunlight, we would die. Further, animals, including us, are completely dependent upon life to convert that free energy into more usable forms. Everything we eat was once alive. Plants keep the oxygen in the very air we breathe at levels we can tolerate. We wouldn't last 10 minutes without air. We are totally, completely dependent upon the environment.
The next time you strut around acting all holier than thou than the "lazy people" because you're employed, think on that. We all mooch off the sun and the environment. If you want to beat up on some people, pick on the ones who are pushing us all closer to unsustainability, by having too many children and/or damaging the environment in their greed to have more, more, more.
I would like to see everyone gain greater independence. A hard life though it was, many had that in the early 19th century, before the Industrial Revolution forced many independent farmers to become factory laborers. Are you crowing about employment, about slaving for The Man, as if that's some kind of virtue? Employers have had entirely too much success pushing back some of the hard won standards. What happened to 9 to 5, to the 40 hour work week? Employer greed, helped along by compliant and fearful employees who've been convinced that it is even more virtuous to work overtime for no extra pay because they're in a "superior" salaried position, and who are afraid of losing their jobs if they say "no", that's what.
And I think we could be in a good position to regain a great deal of independence. It's possible to go off-grid, and not have to buy electricity from a central seller. Add an electric car, and you wouldn't need the oil companies either. You can grow your own food too. Would take a lot of work, but with employers trying to hold minimum wage fixed, and constantly scheming to cut pay even more, it could conceivably pay better to quit a low paying job and put your hours towards managing a vegetable garden. Live off the land. And tell The Man to shove his miserable job and pathetic pay. People did that once. For education and news, download from the Internet. Internet access ought to be treated more like the mail. Our government runs the post office because it was thought that communication was too important and valuable to be totally dependent upon private parties who could and would abuse such power. it has to be supervised by The People. These private telecoms companies have not served us well, preferring instead to monopolize the market and gouge us all for inferior service.
re: big free-hand out from the sun (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with trying to be more independent, should you so choose. But honestly, people are fairly free to live that "pre Industrial Revolution" lifestyle right now. Join an Amish community!
In reality though, most people I know don't WANT that lifestyle, because we've traded a lot of self-sufficiency off in exchange for having an easier life, and one where we're able to focus on specialties of interest. That's done by embracing INTERdependence.
For example, my primary skill and interest is with
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wrong, main problem is lazy people who assume responsibility for exactly nothing in their lives prefer to get handouts.
Wrong, main problem is stupid right-wingers who believe Ayn Rand novels and Fox News.
Big corporations get more handouts than poor people. All the employees in fast-food restaurants get government handouts -- food stamps, Medicaid, welfare. A government handout to an employee is the same as a government handout to his employer, who doesn't have to pay him as much.
I won't even get into subsidies for football stadiums, which is how George W. Bush, an alcoholic pothead loser, finally became a millionaire after
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A government handout to an employee is the same as a government handout to his employer, who doesn't have to pay him as much.
By that logic, a government handout to a corporation is the same as a government handout to its employees, who can receive more pay due to reduced overheads.
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No, that doesn't follow.
The handout to the employee enables the corporation to employ workers at a lower rate, and without it they could not -- they would be forced to pay more because their workers would die at the rates they paid them.
The hypothetical handout to the corporation might get it to pay more, but not only would it not be required to, it could have paid that extra money without the handout.
See nbauman's link above: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10 [nytimes.com]
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indeed instead of broadband or slum-fodder those people should just get a job
Obviously you don't know anything about public housing in New York City. Most of the residents do have jobs. A lot of them are teachers, bus drivers, blue-collar workers, and the full run of middle-class occupations in NYC. I've met computer techies who live in public housing. A lot of successful people grew up in the projects.
It is true that when the conservatives took over, they tried to destroy public housing, and one of the ways was to turn it into "welfare housing." They would give preferences to admis
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Correct me if I am wrong, but it is already a monopoly. If so, then they are already extracting as much profits from customers today.
And I suspect that it is a natural monopoly, though I would think N.Y. would be one of few places where a natural monopoly could be broken. Natural monopolies occur when a company has high fixed capital costs and low marginal costs to add new users. I would think that NY has to population density to mute this issue.
Back to the issue at hand. Since we have a natural monopoly ,
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have you ever built a skyscraper? yes, capital costs are high in dense areas.
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But is the capital costs of laying fiber high on a per capital basis?
I suspect it is a lot lower than laying it to my brother-in-law's home, which is in the middle of farmland – nearest neighboring home is over a mile away. Apartments are cheaper to wire than single family homes. City homes are cheaper to wire then suburb homes. Each step has shorter runs, so while laying fiber is cheaper by the mile in farmlands, you get more hook ups in denser places.
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Industries that have fixed high capital costs and low margin costs tend to be natural monopolies. See water, sewer, etc. for some classic examples. For most of the US, cable companies are natural monopolies.
Monopolies tend to gouge their customers which is bad. The only way around that is by government action, regulation, etc.
However, it is better to avoid both monopolies and government. It would seem to me that NY might be one of the few places in the US where the density of the population is dense enough
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"Natural monopoly" is a somewhat dubious term. Classically speaking, a single provider isn't enough to designate a company a monopoly (for instance, in a small town, one would hardly consider the only market that the town can justify a monopoly). Ultimately, the term assumes that in such a scenario, there is no competition and thus, the state should intervene to compensate. But there is *at least* the threat of competition, which seems to be forgotten all too often. There is also the possibility to (not alw
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I think we agree on many things - we have slightly different solutions - but I have 2 questions about your comment.
Why do you think that the concept of natural monopolies are dubious? It is not the size that makes a market a natural monopoly, it is the structure. Classic examples are water, sewer, and (before interstates) railroads. These are very large markets but they tend towards a "winner takes all" situations where one is only left with a single provider.
Second, why do you think that Comcast Cable fi
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It's dubious because it isn't winner takes all. Even with classic utilities, the term is misleading. For starters, the term was, to my knowledge, not introduced by economists, but rather by politicians. The claim was that the monopoly was "natural", so we ought to formalize the monopoly (provide protections for it) in exchange for control over how it operates. The classic examples you mentioned very much fit with this. Every large city that I'm aware of (and by large, I don't mean very large at all) grants
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I realize Verizon's probably not the best example, as I couldn't find FiOS-specific numbers. But I can't find any numbers at all that indicate that profits are completely out of whack.
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“Natural Monopoly” was coined by economist, not politicians. They are not saying that monopolies are natural, rather that there are many different types of monopolies, and that natural monopolies are a particular type.
To your point about the water supply, I think you are missing the point. There are competing water firms out there (oddly, Enron was one of them) but that does not really matter. A city could have dozen water firms but only one is going to serve you. They are the sole provider to
Re:Just like "free" housing solved poverty! (Score:5, Interesting)
"Natural monopoly" is a somewhat dubious term.
Internet service is NOT a natural monopoly. ISP monopolies are a result of bad public policies. Water and electric service are natural monopolies, because pipelines and electric cables are expensive, and an incumbent with existing infrastructure has a huge advantage. But fiber is dirt cheap. The only cost is the initial installation of the conduit, then dozens or even hundreds of fibers can go in that conduit at little additional cost. So the conduit should be owned by the public, and any bonded company should be allowed to run fiber through it.
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AT&T agreed to offer $10 DSL as a condition of merging with Bell South. I tried many times, calling AT&T, Googled a ton, etc. They fucked us. They probably offered the $10 DSL to exactly one rich ass hole. Why should we expect better this time around?
Two wrongs doesn't make it right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two wrongs doesn't make it right (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the Netherlands we have many, many examples of deals (sometimes forced, sometimes voluntary) between government and companies, where the latter receive some perks in return for doing something charitable for the community. It sounds good, but the devil isn't in the handouts but in the perks, and the motivations of those arranging the deals always have some selfish ulterior motive. And the results are almost always crap. I'm a big believer in a clear delineation between public and private activities. If the community wants broadband for the poor, the community should vote for it and pay for it from public funds, not ask or force a corporation to provide this in return for favours agreed upon in back room deals.
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What happens is this:
1) To pay for this, they raise their price by x%.
2) A small percent of people choose to get lesser service (i.e. slower broadband) as a result in the
3) They end up splitting the cost to pay for the broadband among their customers and their own profits.
Yes, we will end up paying slightly more, but their profits will also go down.
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Because there's currently so much competition for internet service in that area....
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The existing monopoly providers already are both of those things so the merger doesn't change it or make it significantly worse. You'll still have the single provider in most of the markets, just now that in more markets its the same provider.
It's of absolutely no value to consumers though so why it should be allowed boggles my mind.
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The precondition should be that TW and Comcast do not merge at all.
Bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a solution: don't allow Comcast to merge with Time Warner! Who cares about "free" broadband? That would cost them maybe a $1 million and the rest of us about $20 billion in increased fees to support the TWC/Comcast monopoly. Ben has a small mind.
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There is no free anything (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't help the poor by giving them more free handouts. All that will occur is the middle class will pay for it through price hikes and something similiar.
Time and again, history has shown a healthy middle class is the best road to alleviate poverty on a grand scale. Well guess what? It's the middleclass that has to pay for entitlements by and large (especially through fica taxes), taxing them more after decades of no real wage increases (since the 70s iirc) will have the opposite effect.
The best road
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Theres a logical contradiction and disconnect in what you said.
Ill leave it to you to find it.
Re:There is no free anything (Score:4, Insightful)
Time and again, history has shown a healthy middle class is the best road to alleviate poverty on a grand scale.
Let me fix that for you:
Time and again history has shown the way to have a healthy middle class is to alleviate poverty on a grand scale.
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Also i should ask, are you aware of the number of subsidies that go to maintaining our "healthy middle class" ?
In case you're not aware, and I really think you are not, we spend many times more on that than we do on the poor.
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Time and again, history has shown a healthy middle class is the best road to alleviate poverty on a grand scale.
I thought history has shown that killing all the poor people is the best road to alleviate poverty on a grand scale :P
Why stop at Broadband? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Why stop at Broadband? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or are you suggesting that his post is racist because coloured folks tend to be poor more often than white folks? That makes you the racist, not him.
Be that as it may, it's also the standard currently used by US Courts to evaluate policies. In a sane world the Drug War would have been struck down for just this reason decades ago. Not like the CIA recruited the Bloods and Crips to sell crack to blacks or anything - it's all subtle discrimination. No, wait...
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It's not racist to observe that African Americans are much more likely to be impoverished than whites.
As a percentage of the African American population, this is true.
In absolute numbers, white individuals are poor more often than African Americans.
The poverty figures roughly break down to ~40% white, ~25% black, ~25% hispanic, ~4% asian.
If you want the numbers to add up to 100, you'll have to look up the actual figures.
Poverty is not exclusively a minority problem, yet that perception heavily colors any discussion of the issue.
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Which of the White, Black, Hispanic, or Oriental are you assuming is looking to live off the rest of us. Which is it that you have such a low opinion of?
I bet they will agree, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Google... (Score:3)
Knowledge is indeed power. But who controls Google?
How are they going to use it? (Score:3, Informative)
If these people are living in poverty, how are they going to have a computer to access the internet with?
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If these people are living in poverty, how are they going to have a computer to access the internet with?
Go to your local public library with free Wifi. What you'll find there is lots of low-income and no-income people with cheap second-hand smartphones using it for e-mail, facebook, etc. Devices are cheap and plentiful, connectivity less so.
(Note that doesn't mean I like this proposal.)
Poison Pill (Score:5, Interesting)
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Large apartment buildings are (all else equal) lower cost to serve on a per-residence basis than suburban neighborhoods, but you have to look at the revenue side of the equation as well. Low-income households are less likely to take bundles, less likely to take premium services, more likely to not pay their bills, less likely to return equipment if their service is cut off, etc. etc. Not all high-rises are created equal: there's a big difference between a condo building on the upper east side and a public
This is a trap (Score:3)
...
1. This makes it harder for anyone to compete with the likes of the cable monopolies because to provide and compete they'll have to first give away their products and services to people for free simply for the privilege of being able to sell them to anyone else. This effectively makes it impossible for anyone to compete with the cable monopolies. And in exchange for protecting and expanding their monopolies the price for them is cheap. The cost of course is paid by everyone.
2. This sort of thing is ultimately vote buying. We've been seeing this sort of thing go on for years. You want to win the election? Use public money or take money/resources/rights from one group of people that doesn't like you and give it to another group that is for sale. Instant win in the election every time. It is a perversion of democracy. Only those that pay should be able to vote on matters that are being funded.
No taxation without representation... remember? Well... why do you get representation without taxation? It is the same thing. Pay like everyone else or you have no right to influence what gets spent on whom.
Ridiculous. (Score:2)
What about the rest of the country? This is benefiting one group of people in a particular city and screwing the rest of the United States.
Horrible suggestion.
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They'll look the other way when everyone else who isn't in public housing suddenly can't afford broadband access.
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Is it just me or does this not look good from any angle? On one hand you have duopolies becoming a monopoly, on the other hand, the city is demanding free shit from said monopoly.
Sure sounds like it.
Comcast and TWC should not be allowed to merge. Period. No concessions, none of this other crap.
Only 10 short years ago, the very idea would have been laughed at. It still should be.
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We are all worth the same are we not?
You going to give the millions of people in government housing a job paying enough that they can afford an apartment without the government's help? No? Huh.
I wonder how many of these have a part time job, and would probably like to work a second job but their manager keeps calling them in on 15 minutes notice instead of scheduling them in shifts.
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Or is the dirty little secret that some groups truly are incapable of taking care of themselves?
Well, my 2-year-old certainly can't take care of himself. If I were unemployed and homeless, I definitely could not provide him with the same quality of education or prepare him to afford to take care of himself any better than I could. And then he would grow up without learning how not to be unemployed and homeless and have his own 2-year-old he couldn't prepare for society. Your college degrees may not give you the income you deserve for them, but you underestimate yourself. You can read and write, you ca
Ok, so we've spend about $20T++ and 50 years (Score:2)
"solving" those sorts of problems.
Before declaring the "War on Poverty" LBJ was warned that if "something isn't done" the poverty rate would skyrocket . After the trillions of dollars and years spent fighting the war of poverty, what's the poverty rate, 15.something percent? Before the war on poverty the rate had dropped dropped over 32% in 1950 to below 20%.
The poverty rate is pretty much flat for the last 45 years. Can we at least consider to prospect that what we've been doing, at close to $1T per year n
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If other posts here on Slashdot are any indication, "Mr. Councilman" is just as likely to lose political points by supporting the poor.
Actually this particular councilman represents an extremely high-rent district--Manhattan's upper east side. I doubt there are many wealthier neighborhoods in the world. He's not doing this to 'score points', he's doing it to do the right thing.
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His district is the third-highest-income in the city (he represents the less classy half of the upper east side, from Lex to the river), although that may have come down a bit, with the redistricting. Also, it's worth noting that, with the proposed redistricting, he's had three sizable public housing projects added to his district (Lexington, Isaacs, and Holmes).
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Be smart, look at your income, calculate if you can afford to have children or not.
Do they know how?
Or even worse decide to have multiple children without a two-parent home with stable income.
How many teenagers (or emotionally immature adults) do you know that would decline sex if there wasn't a condom handy?
Having children is not a right but an earned responsibility.
Tell that to your penis or uterus. I'm sure it will stop trying once it realizes you haven't earned it yet.
subsidizing the millions in this country that have excess children
Isn't that the same thing as subsidizing the millions of excess children who have bum parents?
If I'm paying for their housing, clothes, food, and now internet, I want a complete say in how those kids are raised.
Then become a foster parent. Or were you kidding when you volunteered to take on all that responsibility?