Non Partison Cause Hoping You Will Support

[xpanda]

You're full of it and full of Republican deregulation....but I promise I won't knock you, ATT, or George Bush in this post.

AT&T is the result of a state-sanctioned monopoly. Are you aware of that? Are you aware that what you advocate will only keep power in the hands of a few large corporations, and make it difficult for smaller companies to compete? Federal price controls mean only those who can employ the advantages of economies of scale will be profitable .. the death of small businesses.

Also, you clearly don't understand the concept of the free market or libertarian politics, or there is no way you would accuse me of being a fan of the Republican party or George Bush.

Before you run around calling libertarians and free marketers fascist, you should learn what it is. Robert O. Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism is probably the best book on the subject. Wilheim Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism is also a good read, but very dry.

 

[levistep]

So you're for deregulation in every instance? That did wonders for the Airlines, Savings and Loans, and Energy in California.

I knew you had some intelligence in you. Carter's deregulation was his crowning achievement; broke up the monopolies and reduced price.

Fidel to Xpanda

You're full of it and full of Republican deregulation....but I promise I won't knock you, ATT, or George Bush in this post.

The libs think we are republicans and the republicans think we are libs. We've got a real tough belief.

 

[Fidel]

What does this have to do with the subject at hand other than another Bush man coming to XPanda's rescue. I'm out I'll let you Bush people talk amongst yourself.

 

[levistep]

So eventually you would wind up with, say, 10 big companies running most stuff, like with oil, like with Wallmart kinda thing.

We used to have thousands of small shops, all gone now, empty or converted to flats.
Economies of scale mean that Tesco and a few others run the ballgame and jiggle the numbers amongst each other so that none of them goes bust and the illusion of "competition" doesn't get fessed up.
Look look, theres six of us. That means we have a competitive market Mr Government so leave us alone.

And if they ever get out of line, someone comes in and undercuts them.

You're full of it and full of Republican deregulation....but I promise I won't knock you, ATT, or George Bush in this post.

As I said before, the deregulation hit it's peak during the Carter-Reagan period.

What does this have to do with the subject at hand other than another Bush man coming to XPanda's rescue. I'm out I'll let you Bush people talk amongst yourself.

No one here is a bushy.

 

[bigplay]

I have no idea why you would think that. Clearly you know nothing about fascism nor Libertarian political theory.

I'd love to see you outline the similarities, though. Should make for a good giggle or two.

For us dummies perhaps you dilineate the specific collectivities for us.

You're right about deregulation ,the problem is it will NEVER happen.

 

[xpanda]

For us dummies perhaps you dilineate the specific collectivities for us.

Are you asking me to outline how fascism and libertarianism are similar?

I can't do that, because they're not. Not at all.

 

[cussin'it]

Are you asking me to outline how fascism and libertarianism are similar?


I can't do that, because they're not. Not at all.

Yes of course, the better comparison is anarchism with libertarianism, not saying anything about the merits, just the ideological similarities, economically

 

[Fidel]

Why You Should Care About Network Neutrality

The future of the Internet depends on it!

By Tim Wu
Posted Monday, May 1, 2006, at 4:35 PM ET


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In trying to figure out who's right, let's forget about the Internet and look at KFC. The fast-food chain discriminates. It has an exclusive deal with Pepsi, and that seems fine to pretty much everyone. Now, let's think about the nation's highways. How would you feel if I-95 announced an exclusive deal with General Motors to provide a special "rush-hour" lane for GM cars only? That seems intuitively wrong. But what, if anything, is the difference between KFC and I-95? And which is a better model for the Internet?
Two obvious differences are market power and the availability of substitutes. KFC is a small fry, relatively, locked in competition with the likes of McDonald's and Popeye's. KFC sells Pepsi? So what? McDonald's sells Coke.
It's a lot harder to substitute for an interstate. And if highways really did choose favorite brands, you might buy a Pontiac instead of a Toyota to get the rush-hour lane, not because the Pontiac is actually a good car. As a result, the nature of competition among car-makers would change. Rather than try to make the best product, they would battle to make deals with highways.
That's what would happen if discrimination reigned on the Internet: a transformation from a market where innovation rules to one where deal-making rules. Or, a market where firms rush to make exclusive agreements with AT&T and Verizon instead of trying to improve their products. There's a deeper point here: When who you know matters more than anything, the market is no longer meritocratic and consequently becomes less efficient. At the extreme, a market where centralized actors pick favorites isn't a market at all, but a planned economy.
What we're ultimately asking is a question that Adam Smith struggled with. Is there something special about "carriers" and infrastructure—roads, canals, electric grids, trains, the Internet—that mandates special treatment? Since about the 17<SUP>th</SUP> century, there's been a strong sense that basic transport networks should serve the public interest without discrimination.This might be because so much depends on them: They catalyze entire industries, meaning that gratuitous discrimination can have ripple effects across the nation. By this logic, so long as you think the Internet is more like a highway than a fried-chicken outlet, it should be neutral in what it carries.
This is the basic case for network neutrality—to prevent centralized control over the future of the Internet. But there's a long-standing rebuttal that goes like this: A broadband company already has incentives to make the network neutral, because it's a better network that way. If AT&T makes money on an exclusive deal, they'll lose it somewhere else. Whatever money AT&T earns by prioritizing Google rather than Yahoo!, it will lose by making its product—broadband service—less attractive to consumers. By this logic, regulating the Bells is a waste of time. AT&T and Verizon also say that they must be free to discriminate to justify their investments in building networks. If you don't let us discriminate, they say, we won't build.
It's true that the Bells might make extra cash by discriminating. But AT&T can extract cash in other ways, too, like charging its customers higher prices. I believe that it's better to have consumers pay more for service than to have AT&T picking and choosing winners on the network. Both are a cost to the economy, but the latter is a double cost. It creates costs that are passed on to consumers anyhow, and it also distorts competition between eBay, Yahoo!, and the like. Building networks at the expense of network applications has a logic O. Henry would enjoy, for it's akin to selling a painting in order to buy a better frame.
None of this is to say that a good network-neutrality rule must be absolute, or even close to absolute. It's an open secret that AT&T and Verizon want to become more like cable television companies. If Verizon wants to build a private network to sell TV, that would justify broad powers to control the network, a precondition to providing the service at all. No neutrality rule should be a bar to building better networks that do more.
But what must be banned are blocking, gratuitous discrimination, and choosing favorites. While it's one way to earn cash, it's just too close to the Tony Soprano vision of networking: Use your position to make threats and extract payments. This is similar to the outlawed, but still common, "payola" schemes in the radio world. Yes, there's money in such schemes, but they aren't good for the industry or the country. If allowing network discrimination means being stuck with AT&T's long-term vision of the Internet, it won't be worth it.

Related in Slate <HR color=#333399 SIZE=1>Adam L. Penenberg wrote about network neutrality in January. His suggestion: Subscribers, not content providers like Google, should have to pay for the bandwidth they consume.
Tim Wu is a professor at Columbia Law School and co-author of Who Controls the Internet?

http://www.slate.com/id/2140850/

 

[xpanda]

From that 'fascist' website, LewRockwell.com; and right on point, to boot:

Save the Internet From the Government

by Simon Que

Recently there has been controversy over the issue of "net neutrality." Companies like Google and Microsoft are trying to get Congress to prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from charging them higher rates for customer access to their sites. Many groups involved in political activism, such as Gun Owners of America, also expressed a desire to see the ability of ISPs to charge higher rates restricted. They have done this in the name of "saving the Internet."

The common belief is that left to their own devices without government regulation, Internet companies (and all other companies) would do whatever they want with their services. They could, in theory, raise their rates and enact highly discriminatory policies. They could even block out sites altogether. Many people who fear this now call for government to step in and protect consumers from such activities.

In a fully free market, this would not be a problem. If a provider raises rates for Google and Microsoft and blocked certain sites, people who don’t like it could simply switch providers. If they really want unrestricted access, there would be providers who would give it to them. And if all the companies somehow conspired to fix prices, new companies would appear to satisfy consumer demand for lower prices.

In contrast, the federal government has attempted to dictate its own vision of how Internet service providers should operate. In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a set of principles for preserving the Internet:

• Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice;

• Consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement;

• Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and

• Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

These principles, if enforced by the FCC, would result in compulsory service on the part of Internet providers. It means that ISPs could not freely contract with consumers for Internet service. With the right amount of political correctness, it could even mean that service providers would be forced to provide access to objectionable content or go out of business!

Furthermore, if rules were imposed on ISPs, it would result in compliance costs as the companies attempt to follow the government’s established procedures for ensuring "network freedom." This creates barriers to entry that would prevent new companies from entering the industry to provide alternative versions of Internet service to consumers. In such a case, incumbent companies could very well get away with fixing prices against the wishes of consumers. We can then expect to see the government step in to "solve" this problem that it created in the first place.

Although people find such behavior as charging Google and Microsoft higher rates for the same service to be unpleasant, they must be allowed to proceed unimpeded. Prices are a natural way of allocating resources between all players in the free market and should not be restricted by government.

For example, if Google and Microsoft were really popular, ISPs might need to allocate more bandwidth to support access to their sites. If ISPs were not allowed to charge higher prices for higher bandwidth, they would not provide that bandwidth. Instead, they would choose to provide less for the same price in order to reduce costs. As a result, consumers would not get more bandwidth for accessing Google and Microsoft’s web services regardless of whether they are willing to pay.

It is important to bear in mind what makes such innovative activity possible: private property and the free market. Proponents of net neutrality hail companies like Google and Microsoft for having made the Internet what it is today, and claim that higher ISP fees would impede the innovation of such companies. But the ISPs that made web access fast and affordable made the Internet as well. Being able to freely charge prices for services is what makes innovation possible at all. To stifle the free market is to stifle the potential for innovation.

Also, note the irony of promoting net neutrality under the banner of "Save the Internet." It was ISPs that brought us the Internet, as we know it. Net neutrality advocates are calling on the government to protect the Internet from its own creators!

- May 10, 2006

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/que1.html