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Are you serious? How do you prevent the various companies from simply using the same frequencies, thus making it unusable for anybody?

I'm all for way fewer government granted monopolies (even cable companies, which of course could require multiple cable runs for competing companies, just like the telephone system originally), but for things that use the limited bandwidth of the air, there needs to be some regulation.

Are you serious? How do you prevent the various companies from simply using the same frequencies, thus making it unusable for anybody?

I am absolutely serious. Before the airwaves were ever licensed US courts were upholding homesteading of the airwaves. In any given area people were allowed to broadcast on frequencies that others were not also broadcasting on. If one person broadcast on one frequency and someone else came along and started to interfere with the signal the first broadcaster was able to take the person interfering to court to stop them from also using that frequency. This did not fit in with the plans of large businesses who wanted to restrict their competition so they eventually convinced the government to require broadcasting licenses. In 1927 the Radio Act of 1927 became law and was what created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) which was the predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was given the power by congress to license broadcasters.

for things that use the limited bandwidth of the air, there needs to be some regulation.

Scarcity of the airwaves? HAHA! There is not scarcity though the mass media wants you to believe that. They can't have much competition, if they did then they wouldn't be that profitable, or able to drawn out other voices and views. The "right" complains the left and "liberals" drown their voices and the left complains Fox drowns their voices. Me, I might want to start a radio show about model railroads and trains, and if I can get some hobby shops in my area to sponsor it I may even operate it as a talk show and let listeners call in. Of course as it is now I can't do it broadcasting over the airwaves, though I might over the web.

Falcon

What new tech?!?!? How about everything NASA ever invented?

We're in space for two and only two reasons:
1) Zero-G Money Shots
2) Arturian Poon Tang

But aside from the obvious, I think you're basically right. Or I must have skipped the chapter in Kessler's "How We Got Here" that invoked porn. Seemed at the time like technological innovation was more an outgrowth of blacksmithing and comfortable clothes.

[A]s an investor, I avoid companies that pay dividends like the plague, and you should too. Why? Because when they pay a dividend they are admitting they have nothing better to do with their money. If they won't invest in themselves, why should I?

Dividends entice investors into debt-laden, slow- or no-growth companies, more likely to cut their dividend, burning investors worse than conflicted research analysts. Run away. They are wearing a scarlet dollar sign. You want yield? Buy a bond.

Failing companies just bribe investors with dividends. Encourage companies with a future to invest in their operations, seeking high returns. If all that mattered were dividends, we (...) would still be investing in railroad stocks.

I think we can rule out Microsoft being "debt-laden", but it still sheds an interesting light on how finanicial people with a tech background will be looking at this move: The growth days are over, and from here on, it is stagnation.

(Disclaimer: Everything I ever needed to know I learned from Slashdot)