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DanWeiss
Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 2296 Location: Connecticut, USA
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Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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Without retching at the observation that government regulates in some way nearly everything significant to the economy, we must ask two questions. How and why?
Students of history will note myriad private efforts that ultimately required government intervention to one degree or another to avoid or destroy the perils endemic to consolidation of resources. Railroads, telephone, television, radio, transportation, fuel, food, medicine, explosives, chemicals, scaffolding . . . typing out a complete list would break everyone's fingers but Mike Fick's.
While not exhaustive in explanation, the Commerce Clause permits the federal government to enter markets to regulate them.
Here, the resource upon which both public and private economic interest rely is data transfer across networks owned by separate entities aka the Internet. Throttling data throughput by one company can serve as a leverage to negotiate license fees charged by another. It also would permit imbalanced competition since data providers now also produce their own consumer media that competes directly with the media the providers seeks to throttle. The law regularly frowns on that circumstance and it is the basis why public company mergers often get rejected by the FTC. The concern is that consumers lack much if any negotiating power with their provider who often operate without any market competitors. That imbalance almost always results in significant price increases to the consumer. While not a total monopoly, the throttle situation results in the same concern underscoring why we rarely permit monopolies to survive.
If anyone cares to learn about the "good ol' days" of monopolies and what they wrought on the country, check out this academic paper: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1213&context=facultyworkingpapers; _________________ Support Your Sport. Join US Windsurfing!
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Posts: 5180
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Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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DanWeiss wrote: | While not a total monopoly, the throttle situation results in the same concern underscoring why we rarely permit monopolies to survive. |
Precisely. There are many adequate consumer protection laws on the books already. The "How and Why" in this instance is quite simple. "How".......in secret because they can. "Why".......because this Administration wants to control everything we do regardless of the cost to do so, and in spite of the indifferent track record of regulators. I guarantee you that we will soon see a new line on our internet bills for the cost of administering this FCC intervention. Four years to build a worthless Obamacare customer interface.........and now they control the internet. What could possibly go wrong! |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 20935
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Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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Even the advertised purpose of this Trojan Horse, as I understand it in a nutshell, is egregious: Prevent people with money from buying faster service. Yeah, Obama ... that's the American way, alright; remove yet one more incentive to succeed in business and life. We'll be back to one choice when he's done: electric Model Ts in any color we like as long as it's black. |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008 Posts: 6485 Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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mrgybe wrote: | DanWeiss wrote: | While not a total monopoly, the throttle situation results in the same concern underscoring why we rarely permit monopolies to survive. |
Precisely. There are many adequate consumer protection laws on the books already. The "How and Why" in this instance is quite simple. "How".......in secret because they can. "Why".......because this Administration wants to control everything we do regardless of the cost to do so, and in spite of the indifferent track record of regulators. I guarantee you that we will soon see a new line on our internet bills for the cost of administering this FCC intervention. Four years to build a worthless Obamacare customer interface.........and now they control the internet. What could possibly go wrong! |
Precisely, again, they are also known as anti-trust laws, and there are hundreds if not thousands of them on the books already, on both state and federal levels, they cover virtually everything.
But we hear the excuse of "but this is a modern industry that these laws didn't take into consideration", fine, but most anti-trust (monopoly) laws are generic enough to be applied to any modern industry. That excuse is for the ill-informed only, knowing that the majority of the peeps out there fall into that category. And that is why I feel sad every time this administration finds a "new" something that is "broken", they seem to get away with governing something that was working good enough, if it was left alone in large part. Sure sometimes a tweak is needed, but this is no tweak.
So this administration doesn't think that the free market forces work fast enough for them (not that they ever thought that they work anyway). CHILL!!! Sit down and have a beer, the market forces will make it work if you let it,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but no, they know better, I say BS, nothing but a convenient way for another power grab that, "oh goodie", could end up governing content.
And that is the big elephant in the room, that the left doesn't want you to see. The slippery slope is now in place.
WAIT!!! NO IT ISN'T!!!
That's right it's going to be challenged, going to court, and the final outcome won't be known for awhile, 6 months to a year at least.
Unless of course BHO puts his crown back on and says "it happens now". |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001 Posts: 4161
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 9:21 am Post subject: |
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Got their toe in another door. I guess we will have to wait until we see what comes through once it is wide open. Sounds good on the surface, but what's the real story? Skeptic? You bet! |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993 Posts: 10588
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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Who would you choose, the government or corporations to ensure your freedom? More often than not, corporations care about your money and not your liberty. When it comes down to it, there just aren't that many providers of internet service. I don't know about you, but my monthly Verizon DSL internet bill is ever going up. Same with cable (the other internet provider), and the viewing selection under basic cable service has been getting worse and worse over the years. I should point out that where I live, Cox Cable TV is really the only choice, because we can only receive one over-the-air broadcast channel without it.
Do I feel like I'm being worked over and taken advantage by the federal government? Not really. At least with the government, we have the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution to protect us. What do you have from corporations? These days I think that Republicans, and those adamant folks on the right, like the idea of America but not the reality, unless they can bend it to their will and profit from it. |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008 Posts: 6485 Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="swchandler"] At least with the government, we have the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution to protect us. [quote]
Obama: I've heard of those two papers, they had something to do with the founding of our country, or something like that I believe, but I might be wrong. |
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DanWeiss
Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 2296 Location: Connecticut, USA
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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Without responding to every detail posted in reply, let me just say that all that the FCC did, more or less, is to include ISPs in roughly the same regulations on the books for decades. Government takeover of free commerce "because Obama wants it" doesn't hold water if for no other reason than major commerce has not been free from regulation of some costly sort since before 1776!
Here, we may experience individualized cost recovery charges similar to wireless and traditional service but never without negotiated terms similar to other utilities. Subscription rates may rise, but alternatives now exist that didn't prior that effectively discourage leveraged clamping that hurts consumers.
Who's similarly frustrated with the sniping and blatant partisanship exhibited by nearly everyone responding to a conclusion different than their respective own? Even the great dissenters here likely could engage in respectful exchange in person. Yet somehow we feel license to dismiss each other as idiots. Or maybe I don't know how to swim in the deep end? _________________ Support Your Sport. Join US Windsurfing!
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Posts: 5180
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:43 am Post subject: |
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DanWeiss wrote: | Who's similarly frustrated with the sniping and blatant partisanship exhibited by nearly everyone responding to a conclusion different than their respective own? Even the great dissenters here likely could engage in respectful exchange in person. Yet somehow we feel license to dismiss each other as idiots. Or maybe I don't know how to swim in the deep end? |
"Blatant partisanship"! Wow!! Unelected government officials institute regulations that effectively nationalize a huge segment of the economy, developed by freewheeling entrepreneurs, that has been a massive engine for growth in this country for the past decade and a half, and do so in secret with no opportunity for public comment..........yet you see objections to that behavior as "partisan"! Your comments do more to reveal your own partisanship than the comments of the objectors. Hopefully the courts will be more enlightened than you appear to be.
This from today's WSJ editors:
The Federal Communications Commission’s decision Thursday to regulate the Internet as a public utility is a depressing moment for American innovation and economic liberty. The FCC is grabbing political control over a vibrant market that until now has been driven by inventors and consumers. Welcome to the Obamanet.
President Obama demanded this result in a November speech, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel have now dutifully voted to apply last century’s monopoly telephone rules to Internet service providers. They have in the process made a mockery of the agency’s supposed independence.
The rules are ostensibly to prevent Internet companies from blocking customer access to particular websites or slowing down service. But the FCC has presented no evidence that this is occurring, so the power grab is being justified by some theoretical future harm.
Seven years ago this would have been greeted with universal outrage. Now it seems the norm. How low we have sunk. |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993 Posts: 10588
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:49 am Post subject: |
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"Unelected government officials institute regulations that effectively nationalize a huge segment of the economy, ..."
Nothing like stretching things way out of proportion and getting far far from the truth. Pretty hard to be considered credible doing that. |
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