DOJ Blocks Satellite TV Merger

EyesWideOpen writes "The Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block a merger between EchoStar Communications and Hughes Electronics that would have created the nation's largest pay-television service, stating that 'This merger would give EchoStar control of the skies for the provision of video programming by satellite, leaving customers to suffer from the resulting reduction of competition'. The FCC had already voted unanimously to oppose the merger because it would create a monopoly that would have 'adverse' effects for consumers."

Comments

What?

[Quasar1999]

Adverse effects??? Someone care to tell me where the hell these people were when Cable companies took root in my town??? Oh, did I say companies? I meant company... Adverse effects of that don't seem to bother these idiots... so much for affordable broadband via satellite throughout the country... so much for local tv service in real digital quality (not the digital BS cable has)... Ick... At first glance this seems like a great victory against monopolies... but what does it really mean???

Re:What?

[stever00t]

Cable companies and phone companies are often allowed to have a monopoly in a certain area of a town - it's perfectly legal when the town enters a contract with the cable/phone company.

For instance, in my town of about 200,000 people, we have one cable company and one phone company - because we let them have a monopoly here in exchange for them laying down wire for the city (city owns it once they've laid it) and also making them push price changes, policy changes, important things like that before our city government - or risk losing their monopoly.

I forget the name of the type of monopoly this is, but it's perfectly legal and (arguably) better for the population of a smaller city to have a company come in and wire the entire city just for being allowed a monopoly AND for the population to have relative control over the price and content offered.

Re:What?

[Student_Tech]

There are alternatives for digital satallite tv that aren't DirectTV/Dish. Example is the 4DTV, uses the C-Band equipment and a big dish. Its digital, its tv, its over satellite.
Quote from article:

James said the deal would create a monopoly in tens of millions of rural homes where cable television doesn't reach, and reduce choices in other areas. Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico joined in the lawsuit.

They need to realize that the small 18" dish no-moving, mono-satallite (yes I do realize some are larger and do receive from 2 or 3 at once) dishes would be all under one company, but an option does exust for the people who have the big dishes, which likely would include "rural" customers that don't get cable.

<RANT>
I also know that cable in some areas is to the point where they are ripping you off. My family swapped to DirecTV (choice because of what they offered channel wise that I got from their website, and the fact we could go to RadioShack and get all the stuff), because the local cable, after taxes, was going up to $40/month for the expanded service (no HBO, showtime, cinemax, encore, ect in that. News, General Family Entertainment, local channels, things like that). The satallite ended up being $32/month. We got one of the amplified antennas on the dish and we got the local channels. We don't get Northwest Cable News which we wish we did, but that wasn't even in the cable basic package at $25 a month. In fact the basic package included 24 channels, 2 were shopping, the ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS affilites (WB was in the expaned, as was UPN), community channels, CSPAN[1-3].
</RANT>

Ok, now that my rant about my local cable system is gouging me is over, let me just say that there are options besides DirecTV and Dish for getting digital satallite TV, but if one focuses on urban areas they may be the only choices.

Re:What?

[AntiNorm]

Someone care to tell me where the hell these people were when Cable companies took root in my town???

Three words: AOL Time Warner.
Two more words: Clear Channel.

Re:What?

[Xenographic]

They're called "natural monopolies," IIRC.

Re:What?

[SacredNaCl]

Almost universally I've been against big company mergers that decrease competition. This wasn't one of them.

I'm extremely disappointed with the FCC's decision in this matter, one that I feel was probably influenced by back door dealing at the behest of the current cable conglomerates.

This was a deal that made sense for consumers, and made good business sense for the companies involved. It's also unfortunate that consumers are being denied Canadian competition in this market as well. (Maybe...but I doubt it, a NAFTA challenge will correct that last item.)

I had a friend that a few years ago bought a house on the edge of what in 10 years will be suburbia, but it isn't yet. They are still getting things like water treatment, gas service, and the like wired up. Every year for 10 years the cable company here has promised to connect this community. Every year for 5 years the phone company has said "we're going to roll out DSL in your area soon". Every year the federal government gives them a ton of money in subsidies to 'wire up rural areas'. Nothing happens.

Echostar has done more for rural communities in terms of offering service than cable ever has. At least they provide a choice. This deal would of allowed them to combine resources, have the bandwidth to offer additional services (and local channels) to just about every area of the US. It would of lowered the cost bar for the service as well. This is a slap in the face to every American living in rural communities and in communities that cable will never be available in.

Re:What?

[DAldredge]

Repost of http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=43937&cid=4577 390

Three words: AOL Time Warner.

Two more words: Clear Channel.

Note that this occurred during the Clinton Administration. Along with the 3 largest ever Oil Company Mergers, other huge media mergers, Daimler/Chrysler, the list goes on and on.

And the Bush Administration, with all the scare tactics about how the Government would be sold off to powerful interests at the expense of the consumer blocks this Satellite merger.

People need to wake up, the Democrats are not, and never have been, for the little guy and anti big business. Because they have sold themselves as being anti-corporate to a stupid electorate, they can get away with a lot more of the selling out of America without serious scrutiny. Ever wonder why Democrats are so heavily supported by Corporate America when they want to raise Corporate taxes?

Re:What?

[scharkalvin]

That's a public utility. Like the electric company, gas company, etc.

Re:What?

[ZoneGray]

Apparently, the concept of a "natural monopoly" is a myth that just won't die. Sorry, don't mean to pick on you personally, but this one just gets under my skin.

Theoretically, a "natural monopoly" was supposed to occur when a business experiences reduced marginal costs with increased production. Normally, when production increases, marginal costs increase. This, supposedly, creates a situation that would allow the company to defeat all of its competitors. For example, once the electric company has run a wire to your neighbor's house, then it's cheaper for them to run a wire to your house than it is for a competitior to do so.

Well, duh. But this doesn't lead to monopoly.

There's a lot more to electric service than a wire, and the electric company will still experience increased marginal costs in all of their other areas, whether it be power generation, transmission from generation sources, customer service, billing, etc. Yes, their average cost MIGHT decrease, but the marginal cost, the one that supposedly leads to the natural monoply, does not decrease.

Even if their marginal cost did decrease, if they tried to use that advantage to jack up prices, then they would simply make themselves more vulnerable to competitors. Despite the simplistic arguments that might fool a freshman economics student (and most Ivy League professors), there is no such thing as a natural monopoly.

But, this myth has been used to create all sorts of REAL monopolies. Wonder why there's only one electric wire coming to your house? Or only one phone line? Or only one cable line? It's because this "natural monopoly" myth has been used as an excuse to encode these monopolies into law. So now, the electric company can raise your rates, but all they have to fear is the politicans, who can be bought off much more cheaply than millions of consumers.

In some cases, I think creating public utilities has had good effects; electricity costs more than it should, but it's probably more reliable than it would be if it were delivered by market mechanisms. This shows up most after storms and other natural disasters, when repair people are dispatched far in excess of what could be justified by lost revenue. The increased costs aren't as bad as they might be in other industries, because the product is pretty simple, and it's pretty much the same thing that's deleivered to all customers.

Cable, telephone, and Internet are another story entirely, though. There's absolutely NO REASON that a second cable or local telco company couldn't be profictable in many situations, but they're prohibited from running a wire to your house in the name of protecting competition.

We've seen multiple phone companies wire the whole nation for wireless telecom over the last decade. Likewise for upcoming 3G/1XRTT services. If the "Natural Monopoly" theory were even remotely true, this wouldn't have been possible.

Re:What?

[cloudmaster]

I love my dish network PVR, but I hate that I can't get local channels because my local affiliates are jerks who won't allow it. If I move to DirecTV, I can get those channels, but I lose my PVR in favor of one that costs extra to get channel listings (and I'd lose some of the channels that I actually like). Boy, it'd sure suck if those companies got together and offered all of the service that I want at a price that still has to remain competitive with cable. Oh, wait, I guess they don't compete with cable.

A satelite monopoly is not a TV monopoly. Why don't the boneheads in gov't realize that? Make them share their bandwidth like the phone companies if that's what they feel compelled to do, but damn, they don't need to be duplicating effort.

Re:What?

[Sarcasmooo!]

Disclaimer: I'm not a Democrat or a Republican

BUT, Some Democrats are for the little guy, believe it or not. I suggest anyone who's really interested in finding out who all those people are should watch C-Span every now and then. It's not that hard to spot the passionate people who mean what they say, or the drawn out partisan speakers who are only concerned with towing the party line. Paul Wellstone was one of the people who fought for the little guy, so is Russ Feingold. Some (not all) Democrats are heavily supported by corporations (and I'm the first to say, cause I've been saying it for a long time, that those 'contributions' come from market driven entities who don't just throw away money, it IS a bribe, and they're getting enough of a return on their investment to keep giving every election year) but some Democrats are more heavily supported by unions. Personally I think bribes are undemocratic no matter who they come from, but that's another post all together.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

Theoretically, a "natural monopoly" was supposed to occur when a business experiences reduced marginal costs with increased production. Normally, when production increases, marginal costs increase.

Wrong. Marginal costs do not always increase as production increases. In fact, in most cases marginal costs decrease as production increases. Up to a point, anyway, and marginal cost begins to increase again.

This, supposedly, creates a situation that would allow the company to defeat all of its competitors.

The point here is that there are no competitors. That is the definition of a monopoly.

For example, once the electric company has run a wire to your neighbor's house, then it's cheaper for them to run a wire to your house than it is for a competitior to do so.

No, it just doesn't make good economic sense for a competitor to run a cable to your house. Not much point in having two sets of electric wires, is there? That's a waste of resources and that translates to inefficiency.

You have to compare a monopoly with pure competition in order to discover the concept of a natural monopoly. If the costs incurred by suppliers in a competition are equal to the cost incurred by a monopolist, then a pure competitive market is more desirable because marginal cost = marginal revenue. For a monopolist, price = marginal revenue and there is inefficienct use of resources.

If there are ten companies each running wire to your house, the total cost for that is much higher than is one company ran wire to your house. This means that the marginal cost curve for a monopoly is much lower than that for a purely competitive market. It is this lowered cost curve that leads to a natural monopoly, that is to say a market that is more efficiently served by a monopoly than by competition.

What are your credentials, anyway? You say "simplistic arguments that might fool a freshman economics student (and most Ivy League professors)," as though you have a PhD in Economics. Sounds to me like you didn't finish the chapter on monopolies.

Re:What?

[M-G]

Every year the federal government gives them a ton of money in subsidies to 'wire up rural areas'. Nothing happens.

That's a good chunk of where all those surcharges on your phone bill are going....

Re:What?

[Wavicle]

I'll love it when they give me free channel listings over the dish and a good user interface. :) Is there a Tivo with dual tuners?

I'm not sure what you mean by free channel listings over the dish. The DirecTivo unit will pull guide information from the sat. When I first plugged mine in, it got the current listings in a minute, the days listings in about 15, the next week's over a couple hours, and so on. Using the DirecTivo is not free unless you buy their platinum package. But this month they dropped me to $5/month for service. The unit itself cost me $99 at Circuit City a year ago (sadly I don't think you can get this good a deal anymore).

DirecTivo does have two tuners, but requires you to run two wires from the satellite to the unit or buy a digital signal stacker/destacker. That stacking hardware isn't cheap though. It was cheapier and more convenient for me to just run a second cable.

I'm not sure there's a tivo unit that compares.

That's possible, but I'm not sure what features yours has that you're not sure Tivo has too. If you list them someone could give you a yes/no.

The one thing I saw in the link you gave that I would say the DirecTivo does not have (at least not the first generation one I have) is speed. Compared to my RCA DirecTV receiver, the DirecTivo is sluggish.

The dbstalk reviewer also mentioned he wished there was an easy way to jump between the two receivers. I'm not sure if Dish PVR has this yet, but DirecTivo does - you press "down" then "right" and you'll be looking at the second receiver's feed.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

Your arguments are so jumbled and incorrect I don't even know where to begin. Please, open and READ an economics text before you try to comment on it. If you *had* read an econ book, you would know that by "inefficient" I mean economically and socially inefficient.

Yes, but a government enforced monopoly is when the government prevents would be competitors from even considering the idea.

Name a government enforced monopoly. Come on, show me one. Just one. No, I won't wait for it. The only type of monopoly enforced by the government is the age-old bane of /.: the patent. And that's not even enforced as a monopoly: patents can be licensed. Name another, I dare you.

Why don't you let the potential competitors decide what's wasteful and what's not.

Guess what? THAT IS HOW A NATURAL MONOPOLY FORMS. It's called barrier of entry.

The additional start up costs of laying telecommunications wire does limit competition in these industries, but it doesn't eliminate it.

The startup costs are the barrier. Once those wires have been paid for by one company, their cost curve drops drastically.

I suspect that also means two sets of cables.

Have a look at your cable and phone jacks, the ones that are connected directly to the poles or the underground network. How many do you have? Is there one labelled "AT&T" and one labelled "RCN?" I didn't think so. You can bet that one company (or government, even) owns those cables and the other is paying for their traffic to run on them.

BS indeed. Read an economics textbook and see just how misguided most of the bullshit on this website really is. A monopoly is not always bad, no matter what common sense or public opinion tells you. Here's one that will blow your mind: It actually makes *more* sense for the government to tax necessities rather than luxuries. Another one: A flat tax actually costs poor people more than rich people.

I anxiously await your misguided and likely incorrect response.

Re:What?

[Archfeld]

BINGO, the only thing these Bozo's do is ensure that they people that pay them the most win in the end. The biggest joke is the part in which they try and fool us into thinking this is for our own good and not pure profit.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

And how exactly is the government *enforcing* these monopolies?

Re:What?

[ZoneGray]

>> What are your credentials, anyway?

None. You either think I make sense, or you don't.

>> Sounds to me like you didn't finish the chapter on monopolies.

Well, if you mean the chapters in Das Kapital and Mein Kampf, you're right, I haven't.

I repeat my earlier example... If there were such a thing as natural monopolies, there would be only one cell phone company by now. But in the last ten years, several of them have wired the whole nation.

It's one of those ideas that makes some sense until you step back and think about it. The argument could be applied to any business, from a corner store to a car company... whoever is already established has an advantage, and therefore should be able to lock out all competitiors. Doesn't work that way, it turns out.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

You don't make sense. But that is neither here nor there. Somehow you got modded up to +5, which shows that /. readers tend to be misinformed. Someone will repeat what you have said in this forum, and it is incorrect. I am trying to correct this so there might be a better understanding of economics on /., something that is sorely lacking around here.

Natural monopolies *do* exist, but essentially only in cases where the good/service provided is a public good or a necessity. Cell phones are considered a luxury and certainly don't fall into either of the two aforementioned categories.

Just because a company is established doesn't give it an advantage. Having a good reputation might, and better advertising might, along with other variables, but being established does not in and of itself give an advantage, and certainly not a monopolistic advantage at that. You are trying to apply arguments for one market configuration to a different market configuration. A corner store is likely part of a pure competition. An automobile manufacturer is part of an oligopoly. So is a cell phone provider. Neither are monopoly markets and neither works the same. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

Just to point out a definition or two:

natural = de jure
government enfored != natural

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

Submitted this all wrong before. Trying again.

Looking at your comment history tells me that you are either a troll or have a habit of posting when you know nothing about the subject.

The whole point of this discussion is that it is sometimes in the public interest for a monopoly to exist. Clearly we are far off-topic, but I'm going ahead anyway. Such a monopoly is called a "natural monopoly," meaning the natural form for that market is a monopoly.

In a pure competition, the firms do not have enough control over the market (they actually have no control) to set the price. They are price-takers and not price-makers. They see one price for their good or service and their only variable is cost. The more goods they provide, the higher their revenue.

In a monopoly, the firm has complete control over price. The firm is the market. This firm sees the entire demand curve, not just the equilibrium point (the price at which buyers are willing to buy and sellers are willing to sell) as the firms in a pure competition do. This complete control over price means that the firm in a monopoly is free to set the price at whatever it chooses. Bring able to set that price means that the firm can earn a pure profit (pure profit is defined as the profit over and above the break-even point; note that breaking even actually means covering all costs including wages). That price (and by definition, the supply of good/service in the market) is set such that the firm maximizes its revenue.

This means that people who want the good/service are going to have to pay for it. Unfortunately, this means that some people will not be able to afford the good. Not all resources are used, since some of the good/service is held off the market in order to maximize the firm's revenue. This is the economic definition of inefficiency. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does encourage the firm to stop innovating and produce only what is necessary to maximize that revenue. Most would agree that lack of innovation is a bad thing, however. This is why, in most cases, government discourages monopolies.

The above paragraph is easier to understand graphically, so I will try to explain that graph. At the point where the marginal cost for a good (the extra cost for the next unit of a good) is equal to the marginal revenue earned from the sale of that good (which in the case of a monopoly is the same as the demand for the good), the firm is maximizing its resources. Move up the graph to the average revenue curve and you see that the average revenue at the MR=MC point is higher than the average total cost. This leads to pur profit. However, the monopolist can move that price back up the marginal revenue curve (which is equal to demand, remember) and finds that he makes even *more* profit by holding goods off the market.

Now let's look at the situation where the good/service is what is called a public good. A public good is a good/service that benefits everyone. Once produced it cannot be taken back. An example of this is a lighthouse. The lighthouse benefits the oil tanker just as much as it benefits the small fishing boat. The light from the lighthouse cannot be taken back. You also cannot charge the fisherman a different price to use the lighthouse than you charge the oil tanker captain. That light is out there for both to use, and can't be shut off if the fisherman doesn't pay.

In reality, there are very few purely public goods. Most are a combination of public as well as private goods. An example of this is electricity. It benefits everyone. It is in the public interest to have electricity. However, it is not in the public's interest for a monopoly to exist on the electricity supply. Or is it? Clearly we don't want the electric company to hold back its supply of electricity and only give it to those who can afford it. Everyone needs to have electricity.

Once company A lays wire and has covered the cost (no need to get into a discussion of amortization or depreciation here please) of that wire, it has dramatically lower costs than company b, which has to either lay its own wire or lease the wire from company a. Once the cost curve has dropped below the demand curve (as it does for a public utility), the monopolist no longer has an incentive to hold goods off the market. The maximum profit can be made where the marginal cost = marginal revenue. So in this case the monopoly is no longer a bad thing. Sure, the company can still charge whatever price it wants, but that is where regulation comes into play.

I'm sure this has been exteremly boring. Seriously, do yourself a favor and pick up a book on economics. It will enlighten you to a great many things about the way the world works.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

I was wrong above...where I said, "in most cases marginal costs decrease...and marginal cost begins to increase again," I should have used "average total cost" instead of "magrinal cost." In fact a natural monopoly is based on the idea of decreasing average total cost and has nothing to do with marginal cost (save the fact that marginal cost and average total cost are related).

Re:What?

[Jayjay75]

Cable, telephone, and Internet are another story entirely, though. There's absolutely NO REASON that a second cable or local telco company couldn't be profictable in many situations, but they're prohibited from running a wire to your house in the name of protecting competition.


Local governments grant regulated-monopoly status to one cable company, one telco, etc. simply to avoid having dozens of competing companies string wires all over the place creating an eyesore, or blocking traffic by constantly digging up roads to bury their own cables.

Re:What?

[jcoleman]

You cannot study a systemwithout taking it out of the context of the real world and breaking it down piece by piece. That is why you couldn't pass economics...you have to look at isolated cases and isolate them further to look at each market force separately. Otherwise you get too bogged down in specifics and externalities, much like this discussion. Eventually you come to realize that the real world doesn't match the theory, because there is a little thing we are assuming...that phrase is "all other things equal." Obviously that's not true in the real world.

I should have been more clear...by "Most are a combination of public as well as private goods" I meant that there are very few goods that do not have qualities of both private goods and public goods.

I believe that some early lighthouses were actually privately run.

You are missing the point. The light from the lighthouse is the public good. When you are out on the sea in the middle of the night, that light is helping you whether you use the nearby dock or not.

You are creating an arbitrary category called a "pure competition"

No I'm not. That is the first type of capitalist market structure studied in most microecon classes. If it's not in your book, then something is wrong with your book. An example of pure competition is the argiculture industry. Not much point in discussing that further; I'm sure you have many reasons why agriculture is not pure. And yes, I know all about subsidies and factory farms blah blah blah. I'm trying to discuss simple theories here and you are bringing too much into it.

Clearly there are no true real world examples of any of these types of markets. They are devices for studying and describing economics. Obviously the real world is much more complex. These "wrong" assumptions have to be made in order to study the system. There's just no way around it.

Basically what you've done here is taken my noble attempt to clear up a mistaken point by offering a little lesson and turned it into a circus. Your theories are clearly not popularly accepted, or they'd be taught instead. And don't bother getting into that whole "against the status quo" thing, it's sad, really.

This has become a typical /. discussion. Dammit.

Business perspective

[Daikiki]

I work at a large electronics retailer, and I've noticed many times that customers have difficulty distinguishing between the competing products, Dish and DirectTV. Prices and products are similar. On the other hand, I also see the two constantly respond to the other's promotions and price changes. Pricing of both products have reached the point where setup, installation, and the required hardware is essentially free. I'm sure that wouldn;t have been the case for long had the merger been apprived. It's also nice to see the likes of AT&T be forced to respond to the competetive pricing of the sat. providers. They're still expensive by comparison, but imagine how much worse it would be without these competitors.

Re:Business perspective

[cloudmaster]

Oh, yay. One free 50 foot length of coax, some random screws, and someone to put both into your house. I sure couldn't handle doing that myself. But since Joe Everyman apperently can't handle moving the dish around until the TV beeps fast, *I* have to partially subsidize the "free" install and "free" install labor. That's right - you're paying for the install, it's not "free". The programming cost and equipment cost rolls up whatever amount of money the company pays out to the installers.

Re:Business perspective

[general_re]

That's right - you're paying for the install, it's not "free". The programming cost and equipment cost rolls up whatever amount of money the company pays out to the installers.

Well, yeah. I don't know about Dish, but the fine print for the DTV installation deal says as much - you don't pay up front for the installation, but you agree to a one year commitment to the Total Choice package, and if you cancel service or are disconnected for non-payment before the end of the year, you have to pay a prorated installation fee ($200, IIRC).

It's just another version of a loss-leader - they've been selling the decoder boxes the same way for years now. It's really no different than a game company selling the system at a loss and making it up on game sales.

And it's not a bad deal for most people - aiming the dish can be a real hassle sometimes, and in exchange for a service I was going to buy anyway, I get to avoid hanging my ass out in the breeze for an hour while listening to the TV beep, in favor of a guy coming out who has a signal meter and can aim the dish in 2 minutes flat.

Besides, nothing is forcing you to take advantage of the installation deal - if you're so inclined, you can always DIY...

Re:Business perspective

[BitGeek]

No, the question, slave, is why SHOULDN'T.

The purpose of the government is to protect human rights. So when they violate them, then they need a damn good reason.

Or do you want to live in russia where you have to get government approval to have a car?

Sheesh. The owners of these businesses have the unequivocal right to merge.

The government has NO RIGHT to prevent it-- and in this case is even violating their own illegal guidelines.

It never ceases to amaze me how willingly so many americans just want to be enslaved-- you want that, go live in russia and see the results of what you advocate first hand.

Re:Business perspective

[rainwalker]

I certainly have no problem distinguishing between the services....Dish (which I have) is $24/month (including taxes), whereas DirecTV starts at $31/month plus tax :) That is a big deal if you watch as little TV as we do and have a tight budget. The only thing that sucks is that we can't get Fox, as we are not in a rebroadcast area, and our local Fox station denied our waiver request (which would have allowed us to get Fox from Dish...note that this did NOT make me want to get an antenna and patronize them :).

Also, on the cost of installation posts, we got our equipment this summer on a "free equipment" deal. We walked into a local retailer, asked for a kit, they asked if we wanted self-install or free pro install (I installed it myself), they handed us the box and the install kit, and we went home. They never even asked our names. I seriously considered going back a few times to get more sets & selling them on eBay, but decided not to. Subscribing to service was a 3-minute phone call away, and required no credit card or minumum subscription length. A friend who went with the pro install had essentially the same experience. On a side note, compare these prices ($24+free) to local cable, which is $53/month plus taxes for expanded basic (analog, digital is another $2/month) plus a $70 "installation fee" (for our prewired townhouse), plus another $30 if you get digital, plus $10/month extra for each digital box, which you must get from the cable company. No thanks.

One way only

[intermodal]

Now if only two way communications services had such protection offered by humans in power...

*longs for a time when all internet boxes were peers rather than AUP and TOS slave clients which connect to the wealthy "servers"*

Seriously

[El Pollo Loco]

I agree. Where I live, it's AT&T for cable, and that's all. Up until recently, it was USWEST/QWEST for phone service. I guess the satellite companys just didn't bribe enough politicans.

Re:Seriously

[ByTor-2112]

I guess the satellite companys just didn't bribe enough politicans.

That was my thought exactly. The FCC is "voting" to disallow competitors access to cable lines, but they won't allow the merger of two satellite networks who could combine their resources to offer even better alternatives to the greedy cable companies.

Erf? Why bad?

[Trusty Penfold]

Surely a merger is good for consumers?

Say EchoStar carries 'Friends' and Hughes carries 'Who wants to be a millionaire'.

If they merge then I get both my favourite shows from 1 company; this is much easier for the TV viewer, they get more choice and it is probably cheaper too.

Re:Erf? Why bad?

[the_other_one]

I get both shows on cable and watch niether.

When will I be able to get the /. channel?

Re:Erf? Why bad?

[RobotRunAmok]

Surely a merger is good for consumers?

Exactly the opposite, actually.

A merger does not mean that every channel on each existing service automatically gets pulled on to the new service

Let's take SlashDotters' favorite content niche, Porn, as an example. (L33T HAxx0Rs and other fourteen-year-olds, please note the correct spelling).

Let's say the New Merged Company (NewCo) decides they want to charge a higher premium for Porn. Not pay the content provider (e.g., Playboy) any more, just charge a higher premium. Some subscribers pay it happily, others grudgingly, others drop the channel(s). There is little either the content owner (Playboy) or the consumer can do. With only one distributor -- one trucking company driving the food from the farm into the local grocery store -- the distributor makes the rules and sets the margins.

Let's say you are a struggling Porn network and you want to get distribution. If NewCo decides it has enough Porn channels at the moment (with Playboy's 4 or 5 or whatever it is), you're done. At the moment, with two sources of satellite distribution, the newer smaller nets are more likely to get a niche, as each distributor uses it as leverage against their compeitor ("Get a Subscribution to Dish, we have the CowboyNeal Porn Channel, the other guys don't!")

If the Porn Channel is entenched with NewCo, and its CEO plays golf with NewCo's EVP Programming every Sunday, it's pretty much on a path to squeezing out more copycat Porn channels to the consumers while figuring out exactly how frequently it can raise rates. Why not? No competition will be introduced. In fact, the distributor can quite handily use its position as the single distributor to dictate exactly what type of new channels should be introduced, and, more disturbingly, how the content on existing channels should be modified.

Worst of all, yet not unimaginable (especially given our niche example) NewCo might (albeit foolishly) even decide they did not want to carry Porn.

As an aside, I am fascinated to see so much support for this merger here on SlashDot. It is getting tougher and tougher to figure this place out. Not that that is a bad thing, of course. Makes for some interesting discussions.

Re:Erf? Why bad?

[ivan256]

I've noticed that it seems like Echostar customers are pro-merger, and DirecTV customers are anti-merger. It's probably because a post-merger service will look more like DishNetwork than DirecTV, and all the people who specifficly chose DirecTV over DishNetwork will get screwed. Based on that, I'd venture to guess that most slasdot readers who are also dish owners subscribe to DishNetwork.

Personally, I have DirecTV, and I'm against the merger. DirectTV tends to support any third party equipment you want to use (read: PVRs) where DishNetowrk wants total control. Total control is bad. I want to be able to do what I damn well please with the video signal coming into my house.

Re:Erf? Why bad?

[RobotRunAmok]

Like in anything else, some folks like their vendor retaining total control, and others do not.

The issue here is ensuring that choice remains an option.

Clearly the DOJ doesn't care

[tcd004]

How dare the government regulate where I get my media! What are they socialists???

They don't care about my rights as a consumer to have ALL my services charged on one convenient bill, all my services installed and fixed by one courteous, prompt repairman!

My life is so convenient when I can get all this stuff from one, homogenous provider! Maybe the government would like to provide all these services, oh, wait a minute, maybe it's not so socialist afterall. /Satire, or, at least something like it.

See Richard Gere's Ass Zoo

tcd004

Questionable merger details

[PhysicsScholar]

I skimmed through the article, but I'm quite curious about some aspects of it.

It is fair to say that the concerns that led to the passage of US merger laws, and the goals that the laws aim to achieve, are not unique to the United States.

All countries that have adopted merger statutes will recognize them: putting limits on large concentrations of economic power, protecting small businesses, preserving competition, protecting jobs, encouraging economic efficiency, and protecting consumers against anticompetitive price increases. The explosion of new merger laws in recent years suggests that the issues may be close to universal.

Anyone else amazed ?

[j_dot_bomb]

What I expected was some sort of bull that there is competition from cable companies. When regulators allowed cable co's to raise their rates everywhere they argued that they have satellite competition. They have SOME competition from satellite and vicea versa. There are many building codes that prevent people from getting even small satellite dishes not to mention obstructed views

Re:Anyone else amazed ?

[davmoo]

The only cure for obstructions is to cut down trees or remove buildings.

However, several years ago the FCC ruled that building codes and deed covenants could not be used to block a homeowner from installing a small satellite dish or antenna to receive broadcast TV.

Re:Anyone else amazed ?

[davmoo]

Keep in mind the usual "I am not a lawyer", but the way I understand it they interpret "antenna" to include "dish".

These so-called effects

[molrak]

Adverse effects like small markets being able to get their local 3-5 stations over satellite? Adverse effects like a somewhat faster satellite internet connection? Adverse effects like nation-wide pricing? Silly me, I must need to check the definition of adverse.

That's good

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

When the government grants a certain business a regional territory, franchise, subsidy, or, protection, competition is legally prevented by threat of force.

Violators of the government's will are arrested at gun point, if need be, or punished with fines. Government cooperation with special interests in business and interference with the free market is the real source of all coercive monopolies.

When the government allows companies to merge into huge monopolies, they are only laying the foundations for socialism -- and that's the last thing we ever want in America.

Without free markets and cutthroat competition, our economy will become stagnant and weak and eventually fall apart due to corruption and incompetence, like in the former Soviet Union and soon to be in socialist western Europe.

Re:That's good

[mc6809e]

When the government allows companies to merge into huge monopolies, they are only laying the foundations for socialism -- and that's the last thing we ever want in America.

The terms "fascism" and "socialism" get thrown around here all the time. Please review their definitions.

From Marriam-Websters:

Main Entry: socialism
Pronunciation: 'sO-sh&-"li-z&m
Function: noun
Date: 1837
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Main Entry: fascism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

In both cases, society or nation is emphasized over the individual.

Re:That's good

[Dutchmaan]

For a nation to work properly the indivdual must put the nation before him or her self. *However* other systems have made the mistake of not realizing that this placing of the nation before individual needs must *absolutely* be *voluntary*.

When you force the nation before the individual, only then does the system fail...ANY system which forces participation is doomed to failure eventually... be it a nation or a company.

Re:That's good

[Russ Nelson]

Um, when the government stops something from happening, that is BY DEFINITION interference in the market. How can you praise free markets and market interference in the same posting??? What are you, nuts?

In a free competitive market, sometimes you have winners. Sometimes you only have one winner. This is not a problem with a free market, it is a direct result of a successful competition.

In the Olympics, you have a winner even though the competition is incredibly fierce. Why not in free markets?
-russ

Re:That's good

[Jeremy Erwin]

Wow.
Lines copied from a dictionary: 25
Lines copied from the parent post: 2
Lines of original work: 3

Not spelling Merriam -Webster correctly, even after conclusively showing that the correct spelling was readily accessible: Priceless.

Right result, wrong reason

[coltrane679]

Opposing this merger on antitrust grounds is a no-brainer. It would mean the entire US would have but one satellite provider, which would be a total monopoly in those areas not served by cable. (Actually, there are ways for US residents to get Canadian satellite service from ExpressVu, like http://www.global-cm.net/).

However, this sudden affection from the Bush administration for strictly enforcing antitrust law is obvious horseshit. Dish won a bidding war for Direct by outbidding Rupert Murdoch's Fox conglomerate. Murdock, a renowned political conservative (he of Fox News, and the NY Post, among other things) figured (correctly, as it turns out) that the politicans his lobbyists bought over the years--primarily Republicans--could be counted upon to do his bidding. And so they have.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[meta_gorn]

[The merger proceeding] would mean the entire US would have but one satellite provider, which would be a total monopoly in those areas not served by cable.

This is true, but you have to consider an even greater evil: not having the size to compete w/ cable in those markets where both satellite and cable are available. Those markets are much bigger. This is why Murdoch mobilized.

When I grow up, I want to be the legislator of scientific laws.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[evilviper]

Phew... Thank's for clearing that up.

When I initally read it, I was under the mistaken impression that they did the right thing for the right reasons. That goes against everything I've seen the government ever do, so I was so confused my mind coped by convincing me I'd traveled several decades back in time, when the government still cared about the people.

Thank you for clearing up any mistaken impressions that the government cares about the people, and reinforcing the (obviously correct) view that our government is up for sale to the highest bidder.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[Ded Bob]

However, this sudden affection from the Bush administration for strictly enforcing antitrust law is obvious horseshit.

Or maybe it is because the Clinton administration is not being bought by Turner to allow cable companies (namely Turner's) to grow into monopolies?

See. I can also pull reasons out of thin air.

Before I get marked down as flamebait, Ded Bob's political affiliation is none.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[joebagodonuts]

Not True. Fox actually bid more than Echo Star. Hughes accepted a lower bid from Dish, even though they knew up front that this would be be harder to get approved. $gosub rumor $rumor: The folks at DTV (executives) believe that if Murdoch were to take over, they would all be fired. If the EchoStar merger goes down the tubes, they might try a management buy out. $return The last thing the DTV folks want is Murdoch. The last thing the Gov't wants is EchoStarDTV, because all the rural customers have lobbied their congress people against it. My guess, the merger gets flushed, then DTV will flounder around going "Uh, OK now what do we do?" With Murdoch in the wings with another offer that I'm sure won't be nearly as good as the original, now that his main competition has been removed. The beauty of this from Echo Star's perspective: They have basically stopped the competition from doing anything posititve for the last year because of the merger. DTV hasn't done much to come up with new products or services, they've been waiting to "merge". Ain't gonna happen.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[joedoc]

Oh, boy, here we go...the dangerous conservative businessman must have bribed Republicans somewhere to get this deal killed.

First of all, the concept of two services in a competitive economy works. Where I live, the majority of people have to suffer with the horrible service and support from the monopoly cableco, AT&T, if they want local service and don't want to mount an antenna.

In September, DirecTV announced local service here coming this month. I've had DirecTV for over four years, and I'll have to install a new dish to get locals, but I can now pull the YAGI antenna off my roof. (It's nothing but a lightning rod here in Florida, anyway). The surge in sales of new DirecTV installs since the announcement has been remarkable.

(I can tell when interest is piqued when a lot of people I know start asking my opinions about my service).

A few weeks ago, Dish Network announced local availabilty on their systems beginning next week. Now, there's even more of a choice. Since DirecTV provides more subscription sports services, you can choose that one if that's a big deal for you. If not, the cable/movie channel packages from Dish are nearly identical in their offerings. And now locals can be had on both.

Now that three providers offer services in the area, the pressure on AT&T to improve service and quality (and price) increases, and eventually, everyone benefits.

But, what do Murdoch's politics have to do with him buying DirecTV? (His bid was rejected initially becuase Hughes apparently wanted to merge rather than sell the service and keep two systems in place). His holdings include satellite systems in Europe, and him owning DTV might mean a future of sharing those resources and allowing more foreign and global services to each side of the pond. I see that as a potential benefit.

With Charlie Ergen and Echostar pulling the strings, all I might be able to count on is being forced to change all my equipment, or potentially losing the sports subscriptions I enjoy so much. I want choice, and I have it.

And, by the way Fox News is not a "conservative news network." They have conservative folks on opinion shows (i.e., Sean Hannity), but that have a stable of liberals as well (Alan Combs, same show) to provide both sides. Their hard news shows also provide a more balanced view, which is something that doesn't exist on network or network-owned cable outlets. Which is why people aren't used to it, causing such confusion.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[Lechter]

Ah...so that's why the Bush admistration stopped a mega-merger for the fisrt time in recent memory! And here I thought it was because he woke up and decided to become a pro-consumer president!

Oh well, I suppose he's got to figure that when he goes to war with Iraq, in addition to the heating oil industry, the media conglomerates will all benefit from new subscribers who want to watch the carnage...

credo quia absurdum

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[UserChrisCanter4]

It would mean the entire US would have but one satellite provider, which would be a total monopoly in those areas not served by cable

That's not entirely true. There's a service/company called, I believe, The Rural Communications Collective (forgive my laziness in not searching). Basically, people out in the boondocks who can't get cable are given reduced priced receivers and DirecTV service, as mandated by law. The FCC (rightly so, in my opinion) believes that although it does sound a bit corny, the ability to watch television is more or less a right. In fact, long before DirecTV or Dish sold local channels as an add-on for anyone, if you lived outside of the range of any of the closest big three (NBC/ABC/CBS) transmitters, you got "local" channels from (I think) New York. While I can certainly see the DoJ's complaints, I also don't understand exactly why they're worried about a monopoly. These companies would still have cable to compete with, and they're required by federal law not to gouge people who can't get an alternative to their service. I guess the way I see it, it'd be sort of like HP and Dell merging, and the DoJ complaining about a monopoly on computers. I can still build a PC/buy it from a few other companies, and there's also Apple/Sun/SGI /IBM/ ad infinitem to provide me with computers.

Just my $0.02.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[Triv]

read this.

I realise that FAIR has what a lot of people would call a 'liberal bias,' but their facts in this case are sound. Worth a look. :)

Triv

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[BitGeek]

The ironic thing, of course, is that there would be only one satellite provider because the FCC prevented any others from being launched!

This is literally the government deciding how many people can compete in the market, and then exactly how they are allowed to compete. Contrary to popular usage, this is the definition of fascism (As opposed to socialism where no private companies are allowed.)

If you wanted competition, you would oppose this flagrantly unethical ruling by the DOJ and FCC and lobby for the elimination of the FCC altogether.

THEY limited it to only 2 companies in obit. THEY make it so that hte local cable monopoly is a monopoly. and THEY blocked the satellite companies from competing effectively against cable.

They told terrestrial stations that they Weren't ALLOWED To sell their own signal to the satellite providers!

This is total inanity.

The reason you have crappy service from Cable is because the FCC has mandated that there be a monopoly.

If you had a free market, you'd have 3-4 satellite providers and 4-6 local cable providers and the best service would win-- not the one that paid off the FCC.

Its pathetic that americans oppose a free market, and then think they are getting one when the FCC and DOJ block a merger.

Idiots, all.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[BitGeek]

EVERY cable company everywhere is already a monopoly.

This action clearly protects that monopoly interest.

The FCC created the situation to begin with by preventing competion on the ground, by blocking sat companies from carrying signals that terrestrial stations wanted to sell them, and by ensuring that in any given area there is only one cable company to choose from.

More often than not, it is the government that created whatever monopoly is in question.

Re:Right result, wrong reason

[Triv]

Read, troll.

From the linked article:

Fox daytime anchor David Asman is formerly of the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page and the conservative Manhattan Institute. The host of Fox News Sunday is Tony Snow, a conservative columnist and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration. Eric Breindel, previously the editorial-page editor of the right-wing New York Post, was senior vice president of Fox's parent company, News Corporation, until his death in 1998; Fox News Channel's senior vice president is John Moody, a long-time journalist known for his staunch conservative views.

Fox's managing editor is Brit Hume, a veteran TV journalist and contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard magazines. Its top-rated talkshow is hosted by Bill O'Reilly, a columnist for the conservative WorldNetDaily.com and a registered Republican (that is, until a week before the Washington Post published an article revealing his party registration--12/13/00).

The abundance of conservatives and Republicans at Fox News Channel does not seem to be a coincidence. In 1996, Andrew Kirtzman, a respected New York City cable news reporter, was interviewed for a job with Fox and says that management wanted to know what his political affiliation was. "They were afraid I was a Democrat," he told the Village Voice (10/15/96). When Kirtzman refused to tell Fox his party ID, "all employment discussion ended," according to the Voice.

I don't care what your political affiliation is, and I don't care what you think of FAIR's liberal spin. Bottom line, bottom-feeder: facts are facts once you weed them from the fluff, and based on those FOX has a rather acute slant to the right (fine) while claiming they're unbiased (not fine).

Triv

What's the hidden agenda here?

[loggia]

Everything the FCC has been doing under Michael Powell is pro-merger, pro-consolidation, anti-consumer.

So, I say, what's the frequency, Michael? What's the hidden agenda here - because there obviously must be one.

Re:What's the hidden agenda here?

[Baki]

One of them shall go bankrupt (maybe even as part of a hidden agreement). Then the end effect shall be the same (a single monopoly remains) but everyone thinks the FCC did their best to prevent it.

Sometimes Gov't works

[ZeroLogic]

Could this be an example of the government doing something right? And maybe, just maybe protecting the rights of its citizens?

Re:Sometimes Gov't works

[aanantha]

Could this be an example of the government doing something right? And maybe, just maybe protecting the rights of its citizens?

No such luck. This is an example of the administration trying to protect their cronies in the cable industry.

Individually, Dish Networks and DirectTV are no threat to the local cable companies. People who live in apartment complexes are rarely able to install satellite dishes. If your patio doesn't point the right way or you don't have a clear 45 degree line of site over any trees, you're screwed. A few complexes will let you install a dish on the roof if you're on the top floor. But they don't have to so they usually will not permit it. Many windows are opaque to satellite signals, so simply finding a window pointing in the right direction is not necessarily enough. I have to open a bedroom window to use my dish.

And even if you can get a dish installed, you probably won't get all your local networks. Although there will always be one station broadcast for every network from your satellite, you can't get access to any station that's not in your "broadcast area". Dish and DirecTV would probably like to sell you a package that gives you access to a replacement station in a different region, but they're not allowed to. The law prohibits it. Years ago, the cable companies lobbied the government to put that law in place to protect themselves from satellite competitors. How many people will subscribe to satellite TV when they'd be missing one or two of ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, and WB?

Good Move

[Evil Adrian]

A good move, especially considering that the barrier for entry to that industry is so insanely high that only Microsoft would dare attempt it.

With that said, how much do you want to bet that Microsoft tries to buy one of them?

Re:Good Move

[Mindwarp]

Microsoft were originally in league with Rupert Murdoch on his attempt to get the News Corp. to buy DirecTV. This was all part of Microsoft's 'Ultimate TV' product strategy.

Think of the hackers!!!

[CySurflex]

Satellite hackers around the US and Canada are outraged at this move by the FCC. Rob Mishka, a long time connoisseur of free (read: stolen) satellite TV, was quoted as saying "We are just sick of having to deal with two different encryption keys every damn week. If they merged we would only have to deal with one!". Rob then spit out the tobacco he was chewing and went to work on the Trans-Am that has been raised on 8 bricks in his front yard since 1998.

Re:Think of the hackers!!!

[SuiteSisterMary]

If you broadcast a signal at someone's house, AND REFUSE TO LET THEM GIVE YOU MONEY FOR IT, you're obviously giving it to them for free.

duh

[Lord Omlette]

Someone obviously forgot the hookers and blow.

They come BEFORE the merger, not after.

Relax

[dachshund]

At first glance this seems like a great victory against monopolies... but what does it really mean???

It means you won't be facing a monopoly in the sky just like the one you've currently got on the ground. I think the companies involved will muddle on through to providing the services you desire without merging into a mega-corp.

Re:Relax

[KlomDark]

Oh bullshit. Two near monopolies are better than one complete monopoly.

Your point is a assinine as wanting only Microsoft to produce software. Where would that leave us?

Re:Relax

[dachshund]

Oh bullshit. Two near monopolies are better than one complete monopoly.

I wasn't aware that cable TV companies were allowed to expand into satellite TV. As long as that's the case, your scenario is impossible.

Incidentally, you only get a choice if you're fortunate enough to live in an area with cable TV. Explain to the rest of the country how lucky they are to get the "choice" of a single satellite TV provider.

Your point is a assinine as wanting only Microsoft to produce software. Where would that leave us?

What??

Re:Relax

[fatboy]

It means you won't be facing a monopoly in the sky just like the one you've currently got on the ground. I think the companies involved will muddle on through to providing the services you desire without merging into a mega-corp.

It means that you will only get a few local markets off the bird(s). Quite frankley, that sucks. Without this merger, you only have one choice if you are not in one of the few local markets served by DTV or DN, your local cable company.With this merger, there will be enough bandwidth to serve many more local markets.Cable and DBS are after the same customer base.

The REAL monopoly rears its ugly head

[Anonymous Coward]

So many people fail to get it still. Only government can truly create a monopoly. No, Microsoft does NOT have a monopoly. As long as there exists one x86 box running something else productively, it does not have one.

Supposed the two dish companies had merged? How popular would it have been for them to have immediately jacked the prices up? But, you say, they could have done it anyway, because people would have had no choice? Well, there IS still air channels. Or, radical idea here! Quit watching TV! Ahh...now I see the problem. The State made sure to preserve the people's Bread and Circuses. If people stopped watching TV, they might start reading or something hazardous.

But slightly more seriously, to take it to an illustrative extreme, the satellite networks join, and jack prices way up. How long can they keep that up? A demonstrated low level of profitable service has apparently been illustrated at the current level. If they exceed this, the pressure just keeps increasing for someone to come in from underneath and displace them as cheap as they currently are operating. It might take 2 or three years, but it will happen. Oh wait. No it won't. Too much government red tape to get through. :-P

Meanwhile, the two existing companies can collude a little bit, and stay just good enough, and lobby just enough to keep screwing you more than unfettered competition would.

What the hell, if they did abuse their market, maybe it would be a good thing. The next dish network to displace them might use 6" dishes, or roll out broadband cable/internet or something. The existing companies are not as likely to do that; they are happy where they are, making money.

It's all a sham.

[cryptochrome]

I'm sure it seems like this is a great thing, having prevented a satellite TV monopoly, but look again: unlike cable, which is limited only by the expense of laying and lighting cable, satellite has severe constraints on expansion of their service. It's really expensive (and risky) to launch a satellite, there are limited orbits for them to use, and limited frequencies for them to use. A merger would have meant that the two companies could have pooled their resources and offered local channels throughout the country. Instead there's a huge duplication of effort, neither of which is adequate. So instead of less populous areas being subject to a monopoly (whose prices could have been controlled by other means, namely a single nationwide pricing scheme), they're subject to NO decent service. Cable, meanwhile, enjoys an effective monopoly in all those areas, at whatever price it feels like, assuming it feels like serving them at all.

(BTW: another brain-dead, protectionist aspect of the legalities surrounding satellite TV - unless you're in a particular local broadcast market, you're not allowed to receive channels in it - even if the equivalent channel doesn't exist in your area, or no local service is available for your area! I.E. I can't get UPN nor WB via satellite, despite the fact that they are actually broadcasting it off the same bird I would receive from. )

Re:It's all a sham.

[puck01]

satellite has severe constraints on expansion of their service. It's really expensive (and risky) to launch a satellite, there are limited orbits for them to use, and limited frequencies for them to use. A merger would have meant that the two companies could have pooled their resources and offered local channels throughout the country. Instead there's a huge duplication of effort, neither of which is adequate. So instead of less populous areas being subject to a monopoly (whose prices could have been controlled by other means, namely a single nationwide pricing scheme), they're subject to NO decent service.

This brings up a good point that I've wondered about. Obviously, there is a lot of redundancy between the two companies. They broadcast many of the same locals, hbos, shotimes, ect. If the two companies were planning on merging, you have to believe they had some plan to condense all the hardware so they'd all work with the existing satillites eventually. There have been a number of theories on how they might do this, I'm not sure if any of them are true, but I believe it is a reasonable assumption that the hardware would be consolidated somehow so everyone used the same satillites.

So, if I'm Dish and DTV and I can't merge (which I believe is a good thing), why not sell off the satellites to an independent company that can keep up their maintance and charge the two companies fees for using the signals? Another idea might be to somehow create an organization funded by both companies that runs the satellites, oversees the creation of new birds, and keeps the ones up there already in good working order. In this way all the satallites can be used together to avoid redundancy and provide more local coverage. Also, both companies could remain independent competitors and sell their own packages and hardware to work the with independent satillite providers. In this way, some sort of competion is maintained between the two and the unnecessary redundancy can be avoided.

Just a thought. I'm sure there are some flaws in it, but it is worth consideration.

puck

Deal was DOA

[LinuxOnHal]

This deal was pretty much dead on arrival due to the current political regeme. This really isn't that big of news, considering the FCC already has blocked it. That nailed 9/10 nails in the coffin.

That being said, it would be good for competition, because it would allow better competition with cable companies...the FCC/DOJ look at it totally wrong. SatTV as a whole competes with cable. It should be labeled the same thing.

I hate cable

[ouija147]

Before I got DirecTV our cable bill went up every year like clock work.

This year DirecTV added channels AND dropped my rates.

DirecTV and DishNetwork compete with the cable companies more than they compete with each other. This is beacuse they don't have the bandwidth to serve local channels to all the DMAs (designated market areas). They have to make themselves extremely atractive to the potential cable refugees--the new sat customer has to install an antenna to get local service or pay the cable company for "lifeline" service.

The cable companies went to court and got the FCC to force the Sats to follow the same must carry provisions that the cables follow. That is if they carry one local channel they have to add ALL the local channels. That amounted to about 1600 channels nationwide. That put an end to my hope of getting local channels from the Sats. They just can't individually carry all of these channels.

I live in Little Rock AR and as the 56th (I think) DMA in the nation the sats were about to add LR to the system when cable companies got the lawyers involved.

If the merger had been approved, I would have gotten my local channels from DirecTV, as the merged company would have been called. The combination of the two would have the bandwidth to carry ALL THE DMAs.

Screwed by the cable company and I don't even have cable anymore.

Re:I hate cable

[K_E_Morr]

The 1 merger I actually WANTED. The killer part is that by combining they could have eliminated redundant channels on the sats and added local channels. I was looking forward to getting my local channels on Dish because Directv already has them. When the Cable CO wanted more bandwidth it strung up new cable. How much does that cost? Dish or direct? How much does it cost to lauch a rocket?

And the stocks went up.

[Animats]

Amusingly, when Justice Department opposition to the merger was announced, both stocks went up. That indicates what investors think of the deal.

Most mergers don't do much for the shareholders. In fact, most M&A activity is counterproductive. You'd think otherwise, but, in fact, making the company formed by a merger work properly is hard.

This merger has been dead for a while...

[doormat]

The biggest point is that in most areas (in temrs of geography) of the country, this reduces multi-channel tv systems from two to one company, and it cities with cable, from 3 to 2.

When the merger first came out it didnt seem so bad, because both satellite companies had stagnated for a while in terms of adding content and local markets (aka local-in-local, or LiL). But in the past year, three spot-beam satellites have become operational, and one more is scheduled to come online. Both Dish network and DirecTV have (or will have soon) the capability to serve the top 100 or so television markets (there are around 220 DMA, or designated viewing areas). Dish Network actually has the capability to serve all 220 DMAs using other oribtal locations for satellites that can see half the country (at 61.5 degrees Wests and 148 degrees West, where as the current satellites that can see all of the CONtinental US are located at 101, 110, and 119 degrees west, aka the three CONUS slots).

The only thing that the merger would have helped is HDTV offerings. Right now, each provider has 4-5 HD channels. As more come online, there will be a bandwidth crunch (since each HD channel will take up the space of 4-6 regular channels). Maybe at the maximum, there will be room for about 20 HD channels for each provider, but there is not enough bandwidth to provide more than that.

Also, Charlie Ergan (the CEO of Echostar, the owner of Dish Network), has done a number of things to piss off the FCC (like challenging the law that says if a provider carries any number of local channels from a city, it must carry all of the channels for that city, regardless of how popular the station is). After he lost the appeal for this law, he tried to do an end-run around the law, and put the most popular networks (the big four plus WB and UPN and in some cases PBS) on the main satellites, and require users to put up a second dish for the smaller stations. The FCC got pissed and told Echostar to do a number of remedies to fix the situation. They have come into compliance of the recomendations, but its still very iffy.

All and all, its a good thing this merger was rejected. The downside is that now Rupert Murdoch will now be the likely owner for DirecTV. Which is better, the devil you know, or the devil you dont?

Re:This merger has been dead for a while...

[moosesocks]

Also, Charlie Ergan (the CEO of Echostar, the owner of Dish Network), has done a number of things to piss off the FCC (like challenging the law that says if a provider carries any number of local channels from a city, it must carry all of the channels for that city, regardless of how popular the station is). After he lost the appeal for this law, he tried to do an end-run around the law, and put the most popular networks (the big four plus WB and UPN and in some cases PBS) on the main satellites, and require users to put up a second dish for the smaller stations. The FCC got pissed and told Echostar to do a number of remedies to fix the situation. They have come into compliance of the recomendations, but its still very iffy.

And he did it with good reason too. When that law went in to effect, Dish had to essentially double the number of channels it carried which had an adverse effect upon their service, as it simply couldn't supply that much bandwidth. As a result, Dish was forced to resample all of its broadcasts to a lower quality. The decline in quality was highly noticible, and for severeal months, Dish's signal looked like a crappy low bitrate mpeg (which it was). They did this just to carry extra channels which were all essentially identical to one another.

If you can imagine, HD will only make this worse. As stated above, an HD channel requires 4-6x the bandwidth of a SD channel. If the companies are already having trouble meeting bandwidth quotas, how will they be able to handle the HD mandate in 2005?

Re:This merger has been dead for a while...

[doormat]

The dish 500 satellite only recieves data from orbital locations 9 degrees apart. Its part of the physical specifics of the dish. It can only focus information from two close locations in space. There is no way you could use the dish 500 unit to get signal from both 110 and 61.5 in the same dish. Besides, dish sends its core programming from 119.

Please think about your "politics"

[abulafia]

When the government grants a certain business a regional territory, franchise, subsidy, or, protection, competition is legally prevented by threat of force.

Violators of the government's will are arrested at gun point [...] When the government allows companies to merge into huge monopolies, they are only laying the foundations for socialism -- and that's the last thing we ever want in America.

What you are describing is termed Fascism, not socialism. You might profit by learning a bit more about political science.

Without free markets and cutthroat competition, our economy will become stagnant and weak and eventually fall apart due to corruption and incompetence, like in the former Soviet Union and soon to be in socialist western Europe.

I think a little less Usenet and a little more Friedman and Hayek would allow you to make the case you want to make a bit more clearly.

-j

Missing information

[ctr2sprt]

I didn't see it in the two articles, but... the merger was proposed, and voted down, once already. This new one has a provision which gives some cable company (Cablevision?) rights to use parts of the combined company's satellites. Cablevision, or whatever company it is, is not currently in the satellite TV game. Apparently the owner of the company is planning to sell some assets (like the channel AMC) to fund investment. The idea here is that Hughes et al. were offering a potential competitor even after the merger is done. This is described in detail in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. Apparently the FCC's concerns with the new proposal are that Cablevision might not have the financial backing to last in the satellite TV business. The WSJ cynically observes that they are trying to learn the lesson they got from the telco deregulation nightmare, where the Baby Bells just outspent their smaller challengers and snapped up the remains when they went bankrupt. But the FCC is also running the danger of preventing mergers of financially-insecure companies, with the possible result that they'll all go bust.

There are some other interesting tidbits in the piece, like that the potential satellite competitor is interested in offering some 40 HDTV channels. The WSJ is unabashedly free-market, so they support the revised merger, apparently with the opinion that neither company can combat cable companies independently.

Cable Co's get their way

[Araxen]

Honestly the only way Sattelite TV was to be a threat to Cable television and end their monopoly reign over people is to merge Echostar and Dtv. With Echostar and Dtv merged into 1 company, they could offer all the locals to all markets, but with the merger being block local channels can only be offered to some markets instead of all of them.
Cable Co's feared a merged Echostar/Dtv, as they wouldn't have a monopoly anymore and Sattelite TV was a real threat with all local market channels being offered but they have nothing to fear now.

Re:Cable Co's get their way

[Zathrus]

You know, I'm continuously amazed by the number of brain dead comments like this that I see.

With Echostar and Hughes merged they wouldn't have competed against the cable companies. They would've formed a 2 party oligopoly. Satellite pricing has been pretty constant in the past 5 years, while cable prices have risen dramatically in most markets. Eliminate one third of the competition, however, and you want to bet that satellite pricing won't go through the roof like cable has? And it has even less regulation than cable has! Come on people, THINK.

All the kvetching about locals is crap. The big markets/cities have locals available over satellite. Rural locations don't, but I seriously question that the merged company would've spent the tremendous amount of bandwidth needed to rectify that situation for the very minor gains it would've resulted in. Anyway, the regulations are that if you can receive a good over-the-air signal then you cannot get the national broadcasts - this happened to my sister. They still love their DirecTV though. The only real downside is that they can't DirecTiVo the local channels since they come in via antenna. They survive.

Re:Cable Co's get their way

[Zathrus]

Heh, you live near my sister then - she lives in Owensburro. I don't know the details of how her reception is, but they seem pleased with it. She wasn't happy that she would be unable to get the locals via sat, but they found some resolution... otherwise I'd still be hearing about it (since I suggested they look at DirecTV and TiVo).

The deal you're going to get via the telco seems pretty good... I'm surprised they're even bothering with the current regulations on the book though. Bowling Green/Owensburo may have enough people to justify it though.

Back on topic, though - the problem is that if you look at the merger plans the idea wasn't to just eliminate duplication. There were plans to sell off a large percentage of the bandwidth, partially to reap profits, partially to head off anti-trust issues ("see, someone else can broadcast now!").

The core issue, though, is that the merger would have drastically reduced competition. When there are 3 or more companies competing against one another there's usually advantages to the consumer - especially in price and service. When there's only two the competition often becomes a mutual oligopoly, with the companies agreeing (tacitly or otherwise) on pricing structures, service levels, and so forth. Do you really think that the satellite pricing would be as low as it is if Dish and DirecTV weren't competing against one another and the cable companies? Do you think that the hardware would be "free"?

Re:Cable Co's get their way

[Zathrus]

If you look at Satellite pricing vs. Cable pricing (I live in Seattle), it's about the same for the same content

Not for everyone... I may finally be able to get satellite since removing a bunch of trees. If so we can save $30/mo for the same service. Currently we have digital cable w/ HBO (and our cable company lumps Cinemax in with HBO). To move to DirecTV with local stations and HBO (screw Cinemax) it's a $30 savings. And I get more "regular" channels. And I can either get a DirecTiVo or a DirecTV receiver that I can plug my TiVo serial cable into, so now I don't fail to change channels ever again and wind up recording the wrong damn thing.

The right solution is to allow Dish and DirectTv to merge with restrictions and to force local Cable competition

That won't ever happen - local cable competition has never existed outside a few very small markets, and it's starting to disappear in even those. Given that, the right solution is to prevent the merger. Competition is the consumer's friend.

As for HD over satellite - it'll happen eventually because if cable companies start offering it widely then the satellite vendors will have to to stay competitive. It may mean launching new birds, acquiring more transponders somehow, or even changing the encoding on the stream, but they'll do it.

Remember when,.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when having cable tv meant you had pretty much commericial free tv? The big 3 had to
have commericials to pay for the shows. Cable TV is something you HAVE to pay for. Now there are
as many or more commericials on CABLE TV. So I not only pay the %$#^@'s for the cable, but also
have to endure #$(#^(# commericals.

I would let them have their monopoly if they would promise to get rid of the commericials.

Re:Remember when,.....

[scharkalvin]

The cable movie networks (showtime, movie channel, hbo, cinemax, etc) don't have commericals (except for themselves and sometimes each other). The other networks (usa, nick, history, etc) do, but then again you don't pay very much for them. For one nonimal fee you get 20 or more cable channels, and your cable company pays very little to provide them (just for the equipment mostly). So the only way USA et all pay their bills is to sell time, just like the 'big three'. OTOH YOU are paying for the movie networks directly. Just because it's cable don't mean it's paid for.

What I don't get

[grubby]

Why is GM so interested in selling off hughes? It seems like a profitable business venture that is only getting better. Anyone who has ever had DTV certainly prefers it over the local cable monopoly. I was concerned with what the echostar merger would do to the Directv with TiVo receiver or now called "Directv DVR"

Half the country may never get locals via sat

[Slashdolt]

In land mass, it's probably more than half, but in population, it's only about 15%.

If you read the FCC's decision (available from www.fcc.gov), they repeatedly mention that without the merger the two companies can still provide local into local service for 100 of the roughly 200 DMA's in the country. Had the merger been accepted, it would have been all 200.

I really don't see how satellite can possibly COMPETE EFFECTIVELY against cable, when they're only provide local-into-local service for the larger metropolitan areas, which may even have multiple cable companies also competing!

The DOJ could easily make sure that the New Echostar keeps its promise of uniform pricing, and make no mistake, They're not making a whole lot of money from us people in Farm Country (as I am), so it wouldn't make sense for them to create "uniformly high pricing", unless they wanted to just roll over and die.

The FCC generally makes decisions that are friendly to broadcasters. Look at their decisions against satellite over the last few years. They (and Congress) regard satellite companies as essentially wanting to steal television from Over The Air broadcasters.

I quit watching the major networks (ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX) about 3 years ago, when I couldn't get a decent signal over-the-air. I get UPN and WB via satellite superstations, and I watch those quite a bit. Broacasters should have been fighting tooth and nail for this, but instead they generally opposed it, probably out of habit. I might actually start watching network TV again, if I could get it on sat.

I'm very angry at Rural TV, and other "rural" groups that opposed this merger. As a rural person in a DMA that will likely never get locals via satellite, I am very angry at these people that are supposedly representing me. They don't speak on my behalf.

State of satellite TV in North America

[shepd]

The entire problem here is that the company selling you service is the same as the company owning the satellites. This is no different from when long distance service was sold to you by the same people who sold you your (overpriced) monopoly landline phone service.

What North America needs is separation of these two areas. (Standard) DVB could do this and still provide the same service level North American currently enjoys. A satellite would be blasted into orbit by an actual telecomms company, a satellite TV station would rent time from them to put their station on the air, and, if necessary, they would encrypt the channel and sell the service to North America in general if they felt Advertising revenue wouldn't cover their rental costs (note: In most cases it would -- A large percentage of what you see on DSS has already been broadcast in the clear on one or two satellites before it makes it to you, largely commercial free). You could buy individual channels that you want (assuming those aren't free), you wouldn't worry about DishNet having UPN and DirectTV not, and there's no middle-man. Not to mention you'd be able to use the huge amount of GREAT DVB gear out there, including computer capture cards. And the freedom of any company being able to broadcast TV as long as they can pony up the cash necessary to do it would be excellent.

Right now we have two companies with a pile of hardly used birds up in the sky. There's complete overlap on four of them, making two useless. Another one broadcasts the (largely unreceived) HDTV content, and so on.

When will this happen?

Beats me. My bets are on 20 or 30 years into the future, or maybe when the current birds run out of fuel. I do know it has to happen sometime. It's inevtitable.

Re:What? - It means that Murdoch won

[mbone]

What does it mean ?

It means that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp won in its battle to keep the US satellite market open for them to try and dominate as they do in Europe.

Look for News Corp to snap up one of these payers within a year or so at firesale prices.

FOX is a conservative network

[mesocyclone]

I must disagree with the previous poster. FOX is a conservative network. As a conservative, I watch it a lot (I use it as video wallpaper while working).

And there is nothing wrong with it being a conservative network. What people seem to miss when they critize FOX is that all networks have biases. Only FOX is willing to admit that it is different.

I would also argue that Fox is a more fair network - you really do get to see all sides of an issue. The way the liberal networks do their slant is two ways:
1 - they simply don't show stories that contradict their points of view. CNN and the TV major networks are masters of this.
2 - they use loaded language. You almost never hear the adjective "liberal" or "leftist" on most networks, but the words conservative, ultra-conservative and rightist are applied to anything that isn't left-wing.

The anchors on most networks are stuffed shirts who try to portray a gravitas and a lack of bias, as they blather along with their liberal and left wing agenda. Fox anchors, OTOH are pretty open with their views, and are a lot more relaxed and human.

And not all of Fox anchors are conservative. Bill O'Reilly is in his own league... he can demagogue from any side of an issue (I always switch to another channel or classical music when O'Reilly comes on).

As far as Murdoch goes, his main ideology is money. He founded Fox more out of a recognition that there was a large viewership that was tired of the uniform biased view coming out of *all* other TV outlsets, rather than out of some conservative do-goodism (or do-badism if you are a leftist). Friends of mine who have worked closely with him are pretty uniform in their view that his ideology is money.

Re:FOX is a conservative network

[mesocyclone]

Yes, they advertise fair and balanced. The other networks just imply it all the time. And I think Fox is fair and balanced - their hosts admit to their opinions on the air all the time, and they do report alternatives (unless you mean the far left dreck that even the major networks don't touch). Furthermore, unlike the other networks, when Fox News gets spokesmen for the other side, they don't get people who are silly caricatures and poor spokesmen - they get the real spokesmen and let them make their case (except O'Reilly, who isn't conservative anyway).

Conservative is pro-big government? really? That's certainly a different definition than I have ever heard!

Conservative has never been pro-big government. It does tend to favor enforcement of different laws than the left does, and it does tend to favor more defense spending, but neither of those are even close to a match for the rest of big government.

I also have not heard them argue for pro-corporate welfare. Can you be specific? Or are you using the left's code word that equates any decrease in taxation with "welfare?"

And yes, they are for going after Iraq. That is not the same as pro-war, unless any advocate of any war is pro-war, and anti-war means no war, no how, no reason, no matter what provocation.

Re:FOX is a conservative network

[mesocyclone]

Under Reagan and Bush, and now Bush II, the size of government increased dramatically. Reagan tripled the public debt. Republicans don't like the government building hospitals, or schools. but they love big government when it comes to the defence industry, space, and corporate welfare.

Since all government spending originates in the house of representatives, which was controlled by democrats during the entire time of Reagan and Bush I, your argument seems to lack a bit of reality! It is true that conservatives don't like the idea of government controlled health care, and we object to the vast amounts of money that are overspent on public education (the US spends far more per pupil than Europe, and gets poorer results - of course, in almost all European countries they have more private alternatives).

But yes, Republicans, and conservatives do believe in the NECESSITY of defending our country, and are willing to actually take the flack for spending the money necessary to do it. Then leftists like yourself come along and blame us for it. Go figure.

Under Reagan, Bush headed the "Vice-President's Council on Competitveness", in which he handed out billions of taxpayer money to select Republican donors. That's corporate welfare.

Gee, and all this time I thought Bill Clinton was the master at handing out billions - which is a lot easier when you have a congress of your own party. He did, Reagan and Bush I didn't!

Bush II just gave handouts and subsidies to airlines,
Which were dying from the effects of 9-11.

agriculture, steel,

This was wrong. But it is HARDLY a conservative trait. In fact, conservatives have strongly attacked both of these moves. Again, you are not exactly demonstrating that conservatives are in favor of big spending.

It *is* true that elected officials in general tend to spend too much money, however.

Not to mention borrowed billions from the financial industry for "tax cuts" - a total joke, considering he just increased everyone's taxes, just pushed paying for it forward a few years.

Would you care to explain how Bush II just *increased* everyone's taxes? The main problem with his tax cut was that it wasn't enough, and the DEMOCRATS insisted that it end in 2010. The other problem was that congress in general tacked all sorts of pork onto bills that were necessary in the wake of 9-11.

Reagan and Bush both gave billions of bailouts to the defrauded S&Ls (like Bush's brother). They've bailed the finance industry time and time again, to the tune of trillions of dollars, over the last 20 years.

What an unsophistacted and untrue accusation! The S&L's were technically bankrupt starting with the inflation of the '70s. In fact, the entire concept of the S&L's, created by liberals, was financially irresponsible. S&L's could only survive, under the liberals' rules, in times of deflation. When inflation hit, it was Jimmy Carter (a conservative?) who changed the rules to allow them to invest in higher yielding (and higher risk) financial instruments. Had he not, the S&L's would have collapsed then, at much less cost, and he should have let them! And of course, the final blow to the S&L's was a result of a liberal required measure added to the Reagan tax cut - a measure which required that Real Estate partnership losses suddenly could no longer be deducted. This led to an immediate (and predictable) loss in the value of almost all commercial real estate of 15-30%. Since the S&L's were heavily invested in commercial real estate (since it alone provided the returns they needed to stay alive with low interest rate 30 year loans out), they lost ALL of their equity. IOW the straw that broke the camel's back was the liberals' insistence on a punitive tax rule. It is a tribute to their political skills, however, that they managed to hang the blame for this on Bush I.

Republicans want more government

FALSE

interference in your sex life, your reproduction, your porn and everything else.

Many of us think that in some areas, some of this stuff indeed has gotten so far out of hand as to be seriously damaging to society. But few conservatives, except for some on the Christian Right, believe the government should "interfere in your sex life" - unless you are having sex with underage kids! Grow up!

Oh, and we also aren't interested in interfering with your reproduction, but we do believe that your murdering of your children to avoid the consequences of your sex life is immoral and should be illegal. That one, you can hang on us.

Bush wants to give tax money to churches and religious organizations.

Yep. Of course, the money is only to go to charitable works, but I guess you would prefer that only uncaring bureaucrats be the only people empowered to help folks!

Yes, conservatives seem to love big government,

You have yet to prove this. You have shown a few places where conservatives want government to act (which doesn't require *big* government) and have indeed identified that we believe that the most important purpose of government is to protect its citizens, rather than to pamper them.

Republicans love to send the US military to "protect America's economic interests" - more corporate welfare, for the oil industry, the weapons industry, minerals, etc.

Yep... of course, Democrats have started far more wars and interventions than Republicans - in fact FDR alone started more than every Republican since then! And if you don't want our economic interests protected, then go live on an island and eat coconuts. Only a fool believes that a country should not protect its interests.

Of course, you really mean to imply that we are using the military solely to help those evil businessmen, but if you look at all our interventions since 1960, that just isn't true. For the best examples of using military for business interest, look at FDR's interventions in Central America - not modern republicans!

By growing the military, they are increasing government.

Duh. Yes, that is true as long as we aren't allowed to cut a lot of the wasteful spending in other areas. Reagan tried to do the latter unsuccessfully. Bush hasn't tried hard enough, as far as *conservatives* are concerned.

But to imply that Conservatives favor big government is to blindly ignore all of modern history, the meaning of the conservative movement, and the politics and writings of all modern conservatives.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like Clinton was much different. He loved corporate welfare too.

Nice admission. Clinton was the master at using the goverment for his own purposes, whatever they were.

And politicans in general use the government to hand out largess to whoever will keep them in office.

However, I have to say that I have rarely seen a more pure example of the leftist propaganda line than you put in your last post. It is almost a classic, except even educated leftists don't claim that conservatives are for bigger government.

It is really too bad they don't teach history today, and it is also too bad that you get your information from sources on the left.

Just the S&L example alone is enough to show how badly the mainstream (read: left) press has mislead america. The general opinion of it, as supplied by you, is so far from fact as to be amazing - coming from citizens of a country that is supposed to be educated.... err... but of course I forget that they are educated by the failed public education system... and propagandized by the real biased media: NBC/CBS/ABC/NYT/CNN/WP/LAT.

Re:FOX is a conservative network

[mesocyclone]

1. Every year, Reagan proposed a budget that would increase the deficit and the debt.
With a Democrat Congress (you ignored that), he had no choice.

Defending our country does not include arming terrorists in Latin America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia,

I thought you weren't going to call names. Terrorists? How about freedom fighters. Don't you remember, in the first free elections in Nicaragua since the Sandinistas seized control, that the Sandinistas were thrown out and a contra was elected?

I presume you are referring to the anti-soviet fighters in Afghanistan. If you don't think that damaging a totalitarian regime that had sworn to bury us is defending our country, you must have a very narrow definition.

Southeast Asia? Which terrorists did the conservatives arm there? I am really curious.


nor does it include coups and destabilizing governments whose economic policies corporations don't like.
Example please? I have no idea which conservatives you are talking about and which countires.

Passing weapons programs that the military doesn't even want, in order to pay off defence contractors, is not defending our country. The B-1, $500 hammers, etc., etc. That's just corporate welfare.
I'm glad you brought up the $500 hammers, because it is an example of mainstream press propaganda. The Pentagon, like any big government bureaucracy, is hardly the model of efficiency. If you order a special run of hammers, made specifically to military only specifications, don't you think it might cost a bit? It may have been somebody's payoff, but it is just as likely a typical government screwup. I used to do defense contracting in a very small company, and have seen the sort of silliness that goes on - that has nothing to do with politicans paying anyone back.

Both Democrats and Republicans do this, but conservatives and libertarians won't admit they love big government - when it helps them.

As I said before, all office holders do this. And none of them admit to loving big government - even the left! Furthermore, it has nothing to do with a philosophical love of big government, but rather to the realities of politics in a democratic society. I am amused the you seem to view the Democrats to be honest about this (they are not) while somehow the conservatives are less so. As for the libertarians, there are hardly any in office at all.

If conservatives believe in bailing out airlines, for whatever reasons, they support corporate welfare, and they are against free markets. According to free market theory, the airlines should have gone bankrupt, if they couldn't handle a slowdown in business. There are plenty of new airlines that could have been started. I guess conservatives don't believe in free markets after all.

Free markets must function within a operating civil society. When the government fails in a critical function (preventing a catastrophic terrorist attack), it is not "loving big government" or not believing in free markets to take certain steps in the face of massive disaster. OTOH it should please you to know that most conservatives oppose the additional handouts that the airlines are now asking for.


4. The S&Ls started having economic trouble when they started speculative investments (due to deregulation)

Good grief, what an amazingly high density of BS!

Let me rephrase your facts with a little reality:

The S&Ls started having economic trouble in the 1970's because they could not pay competitive rates to their depositors, due to rampant inflation. Jimmy Carter deregulated them (and Reagan did a bit more later) because otherwise they would have collapse at that time. They did speculative investments because they were forced to.

I am going to try and explain the S&L in more detail in hopes you will read it and understand...

Imagine that you own an S&L. Thousands of people have money in your institution that you have loaned out to other people in the form of long term mortgages. This is what your organization is required to do by federal law.

Interest rates rise to much higher than those rates. Your depositors are taking their money out and buying other higher paying instruments. You have two choices:

1) After they have taken all your working capital, go bankrupt - leaving any of your larger depositors without their money, leaving the government to pay off the amount that it insured, firing all of your employees, and stiffing your creditors.

or

2) Invest in higher yielding instruments so that you can pay competitive rates to hold your depositors.

This is exactly the situation in the 1970's (and it had nothing to do with some misguided monetarist policy, but rather the natural market response to the guns and butter inflation started by Johnson and furthered by Nixon - who was NOT a conservative).

Moving on....

The best investments which paid high returns were commercial real estate. Lots of money was going into them as people tried to avoid the exorbitant tax rates (i.e. the government's extremely progressive tax policies seriously distorted the real estate market). You, as an S&L owner, discover you can get 14% on your money for a loan to a new development. It has some higher risk (risk/reward ratio, you know). But you have to do it. If you don't, your depositors go to somebody else who does - perhaps a truly crooked S&L operator. After all, the government insurance programs (created by the liberals of the FDR administration) make it a zero cost option. As a depositor, there is exactly ZERO more risk to invest in an S&L that pays a fraction of a percent higher, no matter how high the risks it takes.

If you follow this to its logical conclusion, you realize that this creates a situation where the S&L's continue to have the choice of making risky investments, or going bust! All created by government policies put in place by, guess what? Tah Dah! Liberals.

In 1986, Reagan, recognizing that lower taxes lead to economic grown, had to negotiate with a hostile house of representatives controlled by - you guessed it - liberals - in order to get his taxes down. The liberals insisted on ending what they called "tax loopholes." Part of that was making losses on these real estate investments not deductible, but leaving the gains taxable. The utterly predictable result (and I modified my own investing months before this was passed based on the probabilities of it passing) was the sudden devaluation of those properties.

Was this crooked S&L executives? No, it was people who were investing in one set of rules, who suddenly had the rules changed by government fiat!

and were defrauded by people like Neil Bush.

Ah... you had to put a Bush into this. Nice rhetorical trick that, btw, proves nothing at all. I thought you weren't going to do any namecalling, but here you have just called Bush a criminal. Tell me, if Bush was such a crook, why wasn't he prosecuted by the Clinton administration?


You can equivicate all you want on this one, but the facts are clear - 30 billion a year for 30 years.

Which 30 billion for which 30 years do you happen to be talking about. I can't equivocate about it yet - you haven't defined what you are talking about!


Not to mention that the "conservative" Fed Chairman at the time, Paul Volker, a monetarist (like Reagan) destroyed many businesses by jacking up interest rates - but still provided plenty of liquidity to the finance industry, at attractive rates. It seems that conservatives just love a fiat currency, a hallmark of big intrusive government.

Ah... in case you haven't noticed, liquidity and high interest rates don't go together! How the hell could Volker destroy businesses by jacking up interest rates while not jacking them up to the finance industry? After all, the Fed only affects interest rates (it doesn't control them) THOUGH the financial industry.

Oh, and conservatives prefer a solid currency, which is why many of us are monetarists (a term you clearly misunderstand based on the paragraph above).

Bush has increased the deficit, and borrowed more money, which means that Americans will have to pay more interest. That means more taxes. He's just shifted the burden onto future generations, after he's out of office. How convienient for him. That means non-income federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes will have to be increased. Bush raised taxes on all of us.


I always find it amusing when critics of conservatives (who in your case are clearly of a liberal persuasion - this isn't calling names, it is simply applying a correct label) are those who in the past always favored budget deficits.

The deficit has increased. Do you suppose this might be because the economy has contracted - both as a result of the collapse of stock market bubble, the natural business cycle, and the fact that we are at war and have suffered huge losses? I can remember when the left argued that deficits were GOOD. Now conservatives are bad because the deficits have gone up. Go figure...

Oh, and Bush cannot increase the deficit. Only congress can do that. I seem to remember that the Senate was controlled by strongly partisan democrats when some of these spending bills were passed.

BTW... increasing the deficit doesn't necessarily mean more taxes or that the burden is shifted to future generations. Debt is an instrument to be used when needed, as any business 101 major can explain to you. And the best way to decrease the deficit is to get the economy rolling again, which is best done by letting private money work and by reducing the very real physical threats to our security.

The Christian right is the most loyal and solid faction of the Republican party, and call themselves conservative.

Your point? Yes, the Christian right is loyal (although not as loyal as you might think). And the Christian Right OPPOSED the selection of your favorite whipping boy, Bush, as the Republican nominee. And they are conservative, for the most part, but are definitely not libertarian. Other wings of the republican party are libertarian-conservative. Does the Christian right favor some censorship? Yep. Does that mean they favor larger government? Nope. Does it make all conservatives or republicans into censors? Nope.

So again, I ask... Your point?

Interesting how conservatives care so much about women having abortions, except the kind of abortions that happen when bombing people. I guess only some fetuses count?

That is a seriously nasty allegation, as it implies (without, as your said, calling names) that conservatives are hypocrites and favor killing people out of the meanness of their hearts.

One difference I see frequently is that the conservatives question the wisdom of leftist policies, while the left constantly accuses the conservatives of having evil intent! And you don't like name calling! But you just called conservatives cold hearted killers and hypocrites. You just didn't do it in one word!

So... to address your issue.

Conservatives, being more realistic than the modern left, recognize that sometimes there are truly evil people who represent truly real threats, and that war (which involves killing, including killing innocent people) is a necessary evil. Evil. And necessary.

Leftists like yourself (oops, I can't call you a name)...

Humans like yourself, on the other hand, seem to think that anyone who favors violence for any reason (other than killing unborn babies) does so for purely wrong motives.

I am really sick of this slander by the left. Did I ever question the motives of liberals? Did I ever say that they were evil in their intent? No! Because I recognize that people can have honest differences of opinion, and their opinions just happen to be wrong.

But the left no longer is willing to behave in the civilized manner that democracy requires. The left not only disagrees, but it demonizes. It accuses conservatives of the most vile motives and actions. It never, ever credits conservatives with good intentions.

Instead, conservatives are characterized as corrupt, oppressors, happy killers, war mongers, robbers, prudes, etc. In fact, you have made every single one of those accusations (without using those terms) in your last few posts.

Is it any wonder that I detest the left? That I consider the left in the US to no longer be merely an alternative view, but rather to be a force of malice and evil?


Now, go ahead and call me names, that seems to be standard procedure for conservative liberatarian types.

I sugges you educate yourself about the differences between the conservative and libertarian movements. You have not only slandered conservatives with your attacks on their motives, but you have slandered libertarians by lumping them into the same category.

And I suggest that you take your superior, "I don't call names but you guys do" attitude and...

well... okay... at least read Slander by Anne Coulter so that you can improve your slanderous (or in this forum, libelous) style and bring it in line with the rest of your ilk.

Re:FOX is a conservative network

[mesocyclone]

What kind of freedom fighters kill nuns, priests, children, organizers, electrocute people's genitals, decapitate people and display their heads, oppress women, cut off people's hands for stealing?

The hardly perfect people of Afghanistan, who were being oppressed by an invading army from the USSR. I remember when the left used to be for the oppressed, until they realized that the USSR also oppressed people. Those atrocities they never mentioned.

Oh, and other than the "oppress women and cut off people's hands for stealing" - the rest has been true of most 20th century freedom fighters on ALL sides. BUT, it has been the supported policy of only of the left (Viet Cong) for example and some of the harder to control rebels. Please consider that the acts of the few do not define either the goals or the methods of the many.

Your "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan are basically the Taliban.

No, the Taliban ended up controlling the country. The most extreme of the freedom fighters where of the Taliban ilk.

You're telling me that conservatives didn't support the war against South Vietnam?

No, I'm tellng you that the conservatives didn't send people to fight in Vietnam. But lots of us DID volunteer to do so, including myself.

And if you knew anything about the Vietnam War, you would realize that the bulk of the terrorism was performed at the orders of the North Vietnamese. It was their *policy* to torture and kill any village leaders who did not actively support them. It was because of this sort of behavior that, during the Tet offensive, none of the people that they claimed to be fighting for rose up and joined their cause (which is why they lost that battle so badly). Oh, and those wonderful freedom fighters, when they captured the one major city they did temporarily hold (Hue), massacred 2000 civilians. These were not accidental casualties. They were people who opposed the communists, and they were rounded up and slaughtered.

Did our side do bad things in Vietnam? You bet. But when our soldiers misbehaved and got caught (like Lieutenant Calley and his platoon), we disciplined them. When the VC and NVA engaged in massacres, it was under the orders of their superiors!

I think the people of Nicaragua got the message loud and clear, vote against the wishes of the US, and the terrorist war against them continues. I would have voted as I was told as well. How you can call that election "fair" is beyond me.

You know, the really hilarious thing about this discussion is when you bring up positions like this. If you knew your history, you would know that the American left EXPECTED the Sandinistas to win the election. They didn't think the people were being threatened by contras! Jimmy Carter himself certified the election as fair. Don't you think that if the people voted out of terror, the american left, who hated the Contras and the Reagan policy a who were present THROUGHOUT the war and election period would have expected the people to vote for contras? Huh?

No, it was a fair election.

Oh, and another thing you need to understand about most Latin American battles of the time. The communists were led by the children of the rich! Look at who came to power under the Sandinistas. Oh, and look at their first acts in office: confiscation of the best property of their opponents, followed by giving those luxurious places to their followers.

Furthermore, they betrayed most of those who joined them in the uprising (communist takeover 101). The overthrow of Somoza was a broadly popular uprising. Many of those who fought against Somoza were purged by the Sandinistas, and many of the survivors of those purges joined the Contras!

The only way the Contras look human is by comparing them to the worst of the Sandinistas, who were (obviously) hardly boy scouts.

Demogoguery 101 - deny the humanity of your opponents. Good work. You learned your lession. Here you are nicely admitting that the *worst* of the Sandinistas were a little worse than all of the Contras. But the reality is that the worst of both were very bad. And the best of the Contras were very good. And like most of those situations, lots of folks were inbetween. Stereotyping the contras is no substitute for thinking.

The Reagan and Bush administration's record on supporting terrorists, destabilizing governments, and staging coups against Latin America is well documented, perhaps you should read the declassified documents [gwu.edu] for yourself.
Sorry... but ponting to a gigantic archive doesn't exactly inform. Perhaps you should be more specific.

But... I will accept all but the "supporting terrorist" charges just to clear the air (at least for Reagan - Bush is another matter). Reagan reversed a decades old US policy vs the USSR that had the effect of letting them engage in subversion, and keep their gains, while we were only allowed to oppose the subversion. This, of course, is a losing policy. Reagan's policy was counter-subversion. Where the Russians played the game to our disadvantage (and objectively to the disadvantage of the subjects of the regimes they created and propped up), we responded. We subverted THEIR puppet regimes. And I am glad we did.

Was it fair to the people of these countries that the great powers were fighting over them? Not at all. But we didn't start it - we did, thank goodness, finish it.

BTW... most of your charges are more accurately waged against FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon than Reagan and modern conservatives.

The number of felony conviction against defence contractors for defrauding the Pentagon number in the thousands. Pretending that these corporations don't rip off the Pentagon is ridiculous, the record is clear.

Of course that is true. But I didn't pretend that they didn't. I take, however, take issue with your examples.

The fact that many elected officials support this kind of corporate welfare is obvious, what it has to do with defending the country is less obvious. The B1 is a famous example, the Air Force didn't want it, but the Republicans pushed for it for years, at the bidding of their corporate handlers.

And again, no dispute with all of this except for the implication that only the Republicans pushed for the B-1, and the use of the code word "corporate handlers." So what? I never disputed that politicians, including Republicans, engage in pork barrel. BUT, the fact that they do so does not mean that every action is pork barrel and that every action is selfish. You seem to be engaging again in one sided stereotyping here.

Your "fiat currency" rantings sound like those of a gold bug. Conservatives like a strong currency. Many of us favor a gold standard. So just who are you accusing of what with your wierd terminology, and what does it have to do with your accusations that conservatives don't favor a free market is beyond me.

S&L weren't supposed to pay "competitive rates" - checking accounts weren't supposed to pay interest, remember?

I see. Then please explain to me how S&L's were supposed to acquire and retain depositors? Eh?

Again you assert that Bush has increased taxes. WHICH TAXES? BE SPECIFIC. Bush reduced taxes. And yes, I agree that the silly rebate was a bad idea, and conservatives (those folks you claim to be characterizing) universally opposed the rebate.
So I guess I have to ask again... your point?

You assume I'm a liberal? The only critics of conservatives are liberal Democrats, eh? I hardly see the difference between them

Actually, I don't know what you are. I do know that most of your arguments are those normally given by the left and hard left, so is a lot of your so-called evidence, and so is the rhetorical tone. So whatever you call yourself, you sound like a leftist (in most of your arguments - the fiat currency stuff sounds more like the folks that live in compounds in rural Idaho).

I don't assume to know what's in the heart of conservatives, but I do know that they favor killing of all sorts of people, born and unborn, when it's in their interests. How people who are against abortion, yet for capital punishment, and bombing cities full of people, look in the mirror is beyond me. The National Right to Life Committee doesn't even try to pull that nonsense anymore.

Obviously you haven't paid ANY attention to the philosophy of conservativism nor our spokesmen (and do NOT count Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, or some of the loonier TV evangelists in that number). And I also absolutely disagree with the "when it's in their interests" phrase. That is a nasty thing, when you say we favor killing when it is in our (implied selfish) interests. Yes, we do favor capital punishment (except for many in the Right To Life movement, with which you are obviously on familiar from TV). What it means to "favor killing" however can be better stated in less wildly rhetorical terms as "we believe in the long established concept of a just war, and recognize that in some circumstances it is necessary and morally right to kill/" We also believe it is appropriate to do our very best to protect innocent people in those unfortunate eventualities."

Now, you can disagree with that philophy, which if you do allows me to categorize you as a pacifist (except pacifists don't favor killing unborn children). But pacifists, however moral they may be, are also utopian fools.

So why don't you tell me: how DO we deal with mass murders? How do we prevent it? Or is there no circumstance which justifies killing other than the convenience of sexually irresponsible women?

Interesting that you lump Rush Limbaugh (who is far from a hate monger) with Anne Coulter (who is refreshing because she gives the left a little bit of what they have been giving the right forever) with O'Reilly (who is NOT a conservative, not very intelligent, and not at all polite). They are very different people.

And of course freerepublic.com is one of the more radical of the conservative sites, and hardly represents mainstream conservative opinion. If you want to know what conservatives really think, read National Review, Daily Standard, Wall Street Journal (editorial page only) - or listen to Limbaugh (ignore anything he says about science) or Michael Medved.

I am fully aware of the difference between the rhetoric of conservatives and libertarians,

(not really - see below)

but the differences between their actions are slight. As far as I can tell, Libertarians just seem to be conservatives who like to smoke pot.

Uh huh. Libertarians are almost (not completely) uniformly pro-choice. Conservatives are almost always not. Most people who call themselves libertarians are actually libertines but don't know the difference (go to a Mensa meeting sometime and you'll see what I mean). The National Review, considered the foremost journal of conservative thought, is in favor of ending the war on drugs, but it is hardly libertarian!

There are lots of differences.

Libertarians sure want a strong government to protect their property and enforce their contracts.

Not the ones I come across or read. Their philosophy tends to be "if you want to avoid being robbed, hire a guard. If you want to avoid having your freedoms taken by an invader, hire your own army."

I always did have trouble understanding the difference between a libertarian company town and dictatorship, aside from the dictator being called "CEO" under the libertarian regime.

Really? That is a pretty amazing admission. Dictatorships operate by suppressing all freedoms. Just ask the Russians or the Vietnamese or the Cubans or the Nicaraguans under either Somoza or the Sandinistas. Libertarians oppose all of that. And CEO's in a libertarian (or conservative for that matter) world are bound by a set of laws that prevent the very depradations that dictators are known for.

As far as your attempt at showing irony... you seem to miss the point. The left can be a force for evil without malice. It is true that I believe there is some malice (which indeed is motivation) behind a lot of the most outrageous slanders. So yes, you can really say nasty mean things and get me to, in a moment of anger, question whether you are really a fine spirited person who just happens to disagree.

Re:FOX is a conservative network

[mesocyclone]

REPOST with hopefully the italics right.


What kind of freedom fighters kill nuns, priests, children, organizers, electrocute people's genitals, decapitate people and display their heads, oppress women, cut off people's hands for stealing?

The hardly perfect people of Afghanistan, who were being oppressed by an invading army from the USSR. I remember when the left used to be for the oppressed, until they realized that the USSR also oppressed people. Those atrocities they never mentioned.

Oh, and other than the "oppress women and cut off people's hands for stealing" - the rest has been true of most 20th century freedom fighters on ALL sides. BUT, it has been the supported policy of only of the left (Viet Cong) for example and some of the harder to control rebels. Please consider that the acts of the few do not define either the goals or the methods of the many.

Your "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan are basically the Taliban.

No, the Taliban ended up controlling the country. The most extreme of the freedom fighters where of the Taliban ilk.

You're telling me that conservatives didn't support the war against South Vietnam?

No, I'm tellng you that the conservatives didn't send people to fight in Vietnam. But lots of us DID volunteer to do so, including myself.

And if you knew anything about the Vietnam War, you would realize that the bulk of the terrorism was performed at the orders of the North Vietnamese. It was their *policy* to torture and kill any village leaders who did not actively support them. It was because of this sort of behavior that, during the Tet offensive, none of the people that they claimed to be fighting for rose up and joined their cause (which is why they lost that battle so badly). Oh, and those wonderful freedom fighters, when they captured the one major city they did temporarily hold (Hue), massacred 2000 civilians. These were not accidental casualties. They were people who opposed the communists, and they were rounded up and slaughtered.

Did our side do bad things in Vietnam? You bet. But when our soldiers misbehaved and got caught (like Lieutenant Calley and his platoon), we disciplined them. When the VC and NVA engaged in massacres, it was under the orders of their superiors!

I think the people of Nicaragua got the message loud and clear, vote against the wishes of the US, and the terrorist war against them continues. I would have voted as I was told as well. How you can call that election "fair" is beyond me.

You know, the really hilarious thing about this discussion is when you bring up positions like this. If you knew your history, you would know that the American left EXPECTED the Sandinistas to win the election. They didn't think the people were being threatened by contras! Jimmy Carter himself certified the election as fair. Don't you think that if the people voted out of terror, the american left, who hated the Contras and the Reagan policy a who were present THROUGHOUT the war and election period would have expected the people to vote for contras? Huh?

No, it was a fair election.

Oh, and another thing you need to understand about most Latin American battles of the time. The communists were led by the children of the rich! Look at who came to power under the Sandinistas. Oh, and look at their first acts in office: confiscation of the best property of their opponents, followed by giving those luxurious places to their followers.

Furthermore, they betrayed most of those who joined them in the uprising (communist takeover 101). The overthrow of Somoza was a broadly popular uprising. Many of those who fought against Somoza were purged by the Sandinistas, and many of the survivors of those purges joined the Contras!

The only way the Contras look human is by comparing them to the worst of the Sandinistas, who were (obviously) hardly boy scouts.

Demogoguery 101 - deny the humanity of your opponents. Good work. You learned your lession. Here you are nicely admitting that the *worst* of the Sandinistas were a little worse than all of the Contras. But the reality is that the worst of both were very bad. And the best of the Contras were very good. And like most of those situations, lots of folks were inbetween. Stereotyping the contras is no substitute for thinking.

The Reagan and Bush administration's record on supporting terrorists, destabilizing governments, and staging coups against Latin America is well documented, perhaps you should read the declassified documents [gwu.edu] for yourself.

Sorry... but pointing to a gigantic archive doesn't exactly inform. Perhaps you should be more specific.

But... I will accept all but the "supporting terrorist" charges just to clear the air (at least for Reagan - Bush is another matter). Reagan reversed a decades old US policy vs the USSR that had the effect of letting them engage in subversion, and keep their gains, while we were only allowed to oppose the subversion. This, of course, is a losing policy. Reagan's policy was counter-subversion. Where the Russians played the game to our disadvantage (and objectively to the disadvantage of the subjects of the regimes they created and propped up), we responded. We subverted THEIR puppet regimes. And I am glad we did.

Was it fair to the people of these countries that the great powers were fighting over them? Not at all. But we didn't start it - we did, thank goodness, finish it.

BTW... most of your charges are more accurately waged against FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon than Reagan and modern conservatives.

The number of felony conviction against defence contractors for defrauding the Pentagon number in the thousands. Pretending that these corporations don't rip off the Pentagon is ridiculous, the record is clear.

Of course that is true. But I didn't pretend that they didn't. I take, however, take issue with your examples.

The fact that many elected officials support this kind of corporate welfare is obvious, what it has to do with defending the country is less obvious. The B1 is a famous example, the Air Force didn't want it, but the Republicans pushed for it for years, at the bidding of their corporate handlers.

And again, no dispute with all of this except for the implication that only the Republicans pushed for the B-1, and the use of the code word "corporate handlers." So what? I never disputed that politicians, including Republicans, engage in pork barrel. BUT, the fact that they do so does not mean that every action is pork barrel and that every action is selfish. You seem to be engaging again in one sided stereotyping here.

Your "fiat currency" rantings sound like those of a gold bug. Conservatives like a strong currency. Many of us favor a gold standard. So just who are you accusing of what with your wierd terminology, and what does it have to do with your accusations that conservatives don't favor a free market is beyond me.

S&L weren't supposed to pay "competitive rates" - checking accounts weren't supposed to pay interest, remember?

I see. Then please explain to me how S&L's were supposed to acquire and retain depositors? Eh?

Again you assert that Bush has increased taxes. WHICH TAXES? BE SPECIFIC. Bush reduced taxes. And yes, I agree that the silly rebate was a bad idea, and conservatives (those folks you claim to be characterizing) universally opposed the rebate.
So I guess I have to ask again... your point?

You assume I'm a liberal? The only critics of conservatives are liberal Democrats, eh? I hardly see the difference between them

Actually, I don't know what you are. I do know that most of your arguments are those normally given by the left and hard left, so is a lot of your so-called evidence, and so is the rhetorical tone. So whatever you call yourself, you sound like a leftist (in most of your arguments - the fiat currency stuff sounds more like the folks that live in compounds in rural Idaho).

I don't assume to know what's in the heart of conservatives, but I do know that they favor killing of all sorts of people, born and unborn, when it's in their interests. How people who are against abortion, yet for capital punishment, and bombing cities full of people, look in the mirror is beyond me. The National Right to Life Committee doesn't even try to pull that nonsense anymore.

Obviously you haven't paid ANY attention to the philosophy of conservativism nor our spokesmen (and do NOT count Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, or some of the loonier TV evangelists in that number). And I also absolutely disagree with the "when it's in their interests" phrase. That is a nasty thing, when you say we favor killing when it is in our (implied selfish) interests.

Yes, we do favor capital punishment (except for many in the Right To Life movement, with which you are obviously only familiar from TV). What it means to "favor killing" however can be better stated in less wildly rhetorical terms as "we believe in the long established concept of a just war, and recognize that in some circumstances it is necessary and morally right to kill" We also believe it is appropriate to do our very best to protect innocent people in those unfortunate eventualities."

Now, you can disagree with that philophy, which if you do allows me to categorize you as a pacifist (except pacifists don't favor killing unborn children). But pacifists, however moral they may be, are also utopian fools.

So why don't you tell me: how DO we deal with mass murders? How do we prevent it? Or is there no circumstance which justifies killing other than the convenience of sexually irresponsible women?

---

Interesting that you lump Rush Limbaugh (who is far from a hate monger) with Anne Coulter (who is refreshing because she gives the left a little bit of what they have been giving the right forever) with O'Reilly (who is NOT a conservative, not very intelligent, and not at all polite). They are very different people.

And of course freerepublic.com is one of the more radical of the conservative sites, and hardly represents mainstream conservative opinion. If you want to know what conservatives really think, read National Review, Daily Standard, Wall Street Journal (editorial page only) - or listen to Limbaugh (ignore anything he says about science) or Michael Medved.

I am fully aware of the difference between the rhetoric of conservatives and libertarians,

(not really - see below)

but the differences between their actions are slight. As far as I can tell, Libertarians just seem to be conservatives who like to smoke pot.

Uh huh. Libertarians are almost (not completely) uniformly pro-choice. Conservatives are almost always not. Most people who call themselves libertarians are actually libertines but don't know the difference (go to a Mensa meeting sometime and you'll see what I mean). The National Review, considered the foremost journal of conservative thought, is in favor of ending the war on drugs, but it is hardly libertarian!

There are lots of differences.

Libertarians sure want a strong government to protect their property and enforce their contracts.

Not the ones I come across or read. Their philosophy tends to be "if you want to avoid being robbed, hire a guard. If you want to avoid having your freedoms taken by an invader, hire your own army."

I always did have trouble understanding the difference between a libertarian company town and dictatorship, aside from the dictator being called "CEO" under the libertarian regime.

Really? That is a pretty amazing admission. Dictatorships operate by suppressing all freedoms. Just ask the Russians or the Vietnamese or the Cubans or the Nicaraguans under either Somoza or the Sandinistas. Libertarians oppose all of that. And CEO's in a libertarian (or conservative for that matter) world are bound by a set of laws that prevent the very depradations that dictators are known for.

As far as your attempt at showing irony... you seem to miss the point. The left can be a force for evil without malice. It is true that I believe there is some malice (which indeed is motivation) behind a lot of the most outrageous slanders. So yes, you can really say nasty mean things and get me to, in a moment of anger, question whether you are really a fine spirited person who just happens to disagree.

This violates the bill of rights.

[BitGeek]

Speicfically, the right to free association.

Furthermore, its idiotic-- how can a company competing with thousands of cable companies around the country be a "monopoly"?

I think MS deserves to be punished for stealing apple's technology and defrauding linux and other users who never used windows but were forced to pay for it.

but the FCC has no business being in existance in the first place, and if this is the result of a republican DOJ, then the republicans really are no different from the democrats.

And somehow, I suspect the leftist slashdot crowd is happy to see that human rights have, once again, taken it up the a$%

Could you explain this more?

[MemeRot]

"Natural monopolies *do* exist, but essentially only in cases where the good/service provided is a public good or a necessity."

Drinking water is a human necessity. Is there room in the water market for a natural monopoly?

Cable internet is not a human necessity. Is there room in the cable internet market for a natural monopoly?

Why or why not? I am not well versed in finance, so maybe you could explain a little bit more.

Re:Could you explain this more?

[jcoleman]

Drinking water is (essentially) a public good and is generally provided by the local government.

I can't say that it's *always* provided by the local government (although I assume it is), but here we're talking about a public utility provided by a government-run organization. Public utilities are natural monopolies.

I'm kind of stumped on the cable issue. Seems like it's not a very good example of a public utility, since it's not a necessity, but it is a good example of a natural monopoly. Decreasing cost is really what creates a natural monopoly, not whether it's a necessity or a public good.

Excuse me?

[MemeRot]

Don't you know how cable licenses work? A county government grants a license to one company to operate all the cable in that company in exchange for a large pile of cashola. And that's it. It's illegal for any other cable company to offer service in that county after that until the license expires (and they hardly ever change companies, though it is theoretically possible). Are you asking where are the undercover cops trying to entice other cable companies to offer service in the county or something? If you're going to spew harsh vitriol over the definition of monopolies you really need to know some of the basics here.

uh oh... i fell for the troll

[MemeRot]

Definitions:
de jure = enforced by LAW
de facto = just a general rule, not enforced by life

natural = de facto
government enforced = de jure

de jure != de facto, obviously

Re:uh oh... i fell for the troll

[jcoleman]

Shit, I misspoke.

I do have a limited understanding of cable companies. However, the basic point I was trying to make is that natural monopolies do exist, and a clearly incorrect post got modded up. That incorrect post will just go to further the economic ignorance of the majority of /. readers.

Thanks for correcting me.

flat tax

[MemeRot]

"Another one: A flat tax actually costs poor people more than rich people."

True... so you'd think the sliding scale made the most sense. But ONLY IF the rich pay the portion they're supposed to by law. If it's possible to hide wealth with offshore holding companies, shell organization etc (which it is - for the wealthy) then the rich can get away with paying ZERO. While if there's a flat tax and you're driving a fleet of mercedes and sailing on your yacht and paying zero, then it's obvious you're lying to the IRS. This is why the alternative minimum tax was created, because the wealthy have a natural tendency to avoid paying their legally mandated share. So with flat versus sliding tax rates, the question becomes 'If I were wealthy, how hard would I try to hide my wealth to avoid a 70% tax rate, versus how hard would I try to hide my wealth to avoid a 12% tax rate?"

The real regressive tax proposals are sin taxes. Legislators are always willing to raise taxes on beer and cigarettes, while avoiding tax hikes on facials, fine wine, yachts, personal jets, etc.

A monopoly isn't always bad, but if the company with the monopoly has no fear of losing it's monopoly status it tends to encourage poor customer service and other business practices that would be weeded out by competition. My cable company sucks. What can I do about it? Nothing. BUT if enough people complain, that company CAN lose it's monopoly status when its license expires. So the county gets the benefits of efficiency you get with a monopoly, but still with a little whip of fear of competition to spur the company on.

enron

[MemeRot]

"Clearly we don't want the electric company to hold back its supply of electricity and only give it to those who can afford it. Everyone needs to have electricity."

So where do you fit Enron into that? Didn't they engage in exactly that practice, manipulating the energy market to drive up spot prices?

it happens

[MemeRot]

Remember the story about how blonds are going to go extinct? It was in all the major media. Unfortunately it was based on a World Health Organization report that doesn't exist. Nobody knows where the story started. And almost nobody covered the fact that the report didn't exist. When bad info gets out there, getting good info out after the fact usually doesn't help because it doesn't get the attention.

drinking water

[MemeRot]

Have you followed the trend of privatizing drinking water? It's being called the next century's gold. The WTO has been involved in several deals where they required a developing country to allow a foreign company to come in and start running the drinking water supply as a for-profit venture. Premium quality spring water - fine as a for-profit. But basic potable water? Horribly ill-suited.