NET NEUTRALITY

[boggsman1]

I would happily subsidize the idea generators over the ISp cartel... Crappy service, outrageous prices ... Maybe you are ok w mediocrity , I am not .

[mac]

Gordon Gecko would be so proud as our righties fall all over themselves to declare that, when it comes to the public airwaves greed is good, the magic hand of Adam Smith will assure that competition lowers prices, no matter what, and that we always have the anti-trust laws. Life in the bubble does not allow inconvenient facts in.

The mythical, lightly or unregulated days they are looking back to are filled with evidence that business will take advantage of all loopholes, and only government has the power to force them to behave in a civilized manner. Let us not forget:

- The unregulated meat industry that Upton Sinclair outed in "The Jungle."
- The burning Cuyahoga river --a burning oil slick
- The recently discovered illegal oil pits in the Central Valley in California

Throw in the ability of Wall Street to melt down the economy with temerity, get bailed out without getting broken up, and then convince all the Republicans and enough of the Democrats to ease the rather tame regulations in the Dodd-Frank Act.

There are, of course, a number of problems with invoking anti-trust laws in response to predatory business practices. You have, most recently, the 2008 melt down, caused by unregulated and predatory lending practices. The courts, the more inefficient and slower alternative to regulation, were helpless to hold banks accountable for those predatory lending practices because a Texas Republican, besotted by the same Ayn Rand theology of our righties, had made them all legal. How quickly we forget.

Breaking up those too big to fail banks, as the world economy shed jobs faster than a wet sheep dog sheds water, was particularly unpalatable. But how typical of the "conservatives" to point to an 1890 law (The Sherman anti-trust law) as an alternative to reasonable regulation. They are either relying on Murdoch/ALEC/Koch talking points, or blind to the arbitrariness of the remedy. Most anti-trust litigation is undertaken privately, with no coherent pattern in effectiveness or fairness. http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/law/centers/antitrust/pdfs/publications/workingpapers/pnnsment.pdf

I can just imagine the outrage by the righties if the Department of Justice under Holder had initiated litigation against any of the banks who brought down the economy in 2008. But the remedy, crafted in 1980, does not work today. Read, for example: http://www.dcbar.org/bar-resources/publications/washington-lawyer/articles/february-2013-taking-the-stand.cfm

Those issues were discussed in hearings in Congress in 2009 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg48102/html/CHRG-111hhrg48102.htm, and the Congress strained to come up with the weak Dodd-Frank law, which has most recently been made even weaker.

There are other critiques, such as http://baselinescenario.com/2009/05/12/antitrust-for-banks-ask-carl-shapiro/, but the fact is that we haven't seen any anti-trust litigation pursued by the Department of Justice against the banks. The difficulty of pursuing those cases makes it nearly impossible for private litigants to succeed, and the political influence of the banks, and the high risks in litigation, have resulted in the DOJ arriving at a series of settlements that look impressive in dollar amount, but have relatively little punitive or restorative impact.

We can only hope that the most rabid of the commentors here lost what they thought was a sure-fire opportunity to make their investments pay off, relying on predatory practices and the myth of the invisible hand.

[mrgybe]

[swchandler]

mrgybe, for a guy that has such a high opinion of himself, it sometimes amazes me that you're often clueless of what's been going on around you. When I was young, cars were horribly polluting and unsafe. Why has that changed? Because the government established meaningful emissions and safety regulations, and they ultimately forced the auto industry to change and innovate. Contrary to auto industry predictions, all the negative BS that they offered at the time fighting regulations never happened, and the industry has thrived and everyone is better for it.

The situation with the internet and net neutrality isn't any different. The federal government has stepped in with needed regulations that will ensure a freer and more competitive internet environment for the future. While the hopes for ISPs to monopolize and profit on things has been dashed, they will adjust and continue to profit from their business opportunities just like the auto industry did.

[mrgybe]

Look up "Antitrust Laws". It will broaden your understanding.

A simple summary:
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/antitrust-law.asp

Signed,
Clueless

[mac]

Chandler--My wife and I are alive today because of safety regulations. We survived a head on collision at a combined speed of about 120 miles an hour. Despite increasing people driving, and until about 2007, steadily increases in mileage driven, deaths have declined. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/safety-in-numbers-charting-traffic-safety-and-fatality-data

The number of lives saved by safety regulation exceeds by at least an order of magnitude those killed on 9/11, or those that are subject to mrgybe's hypothetical mall bombing. (Can't have any disruption in our national pastime.)

Contrary to the blather on the right, the market did not deliver these safety improvements as part of creating superior products. Indeed, the car companies and mrgybe's buddies in the oil industry fought safety and mileage standards.

This libertarian nonsense is not just foolish, it is deadly.

[mrgybe]

Regulate everything. Go on.........duplicate adequate existing regulations. Who cares about the expense? The 1% can pay and the world will be so much better, as a much repeated anecdote proves.

Thus spake the lifelong government worker a.k.a. cost center.

[boggsman1]

Mr G
There are 3 ISPs that control 90 % of the broadband in the country... In the 1990s there were 20. I agree that competition would solve the problem but that is isn't possible with the current structure ... You also seem not to understand that a large part of the spectrum is publicly financed ...now the ISPs own content (Comcast owns nbc) so net neutrality is certainly warranted or else we might all be forced to watch ChRis Mathews and Rachel Maddow

[swchandler]

The 3 to 2 FCC vote proves who came up on top. All the whining and denigration from the right means what? Just sour grapes for losing. In the long run the correct choice was made, and history will ultimately prove that's true.

Frankly, the Republican majority and their arrogance will suffer a lot of defeats over the next two years. Didn't look that way last November when they were all flush with the intoxication of their wins in Congress, but reality has its costs. It's time for Republicans to lead a bi-partisan push if they want to win in 2016. Are they smart enough, and can they organize their ranks to show they've got it together? I seriously doubt it, but it's guys like you are going show whether they have the flexibility and creativity to come out on top. Are you ready to moderate your tone and create synergy with those on the left? It doesn't mean that conservative ideas will lose, it just means that you won't get everything you want.

[nw30]

I remember on several occasions, the government has stepped in to regulate cable TV because of the complaints about it getting too expensive.
Well it sure got cheaper didn't it.
Pfffft!

The cable companies got around the new regs by just adding more channels that nobody was asking for, fine deal that turned out to be.

"It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want."
--SPOCK, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Errand of Mercy"