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FCC Ignores Public, Relaxes Media Ownership
anthrax writes "Ignoring Congressional and public comments, the FCC voted to relax ownership rules that have prevented broadcasters from owning newspapers in the nation's 20 largest media markets. After holding several public hearings that overwhelmingly opposed the relaxation of the rules, and Congressional hearing where Democrats and Republicans (even Ted 'Tubes' Stevens) voiced opposition to the move, the FCC voted 3 to 2 to relax ownership. On the same day the FCC voted 3 to 2 (by a different split) to cap the size of any cable company at 30% of the nationwide market, a limit Comcast is up against."
The brazen disregard show by those 3 commissioners is absolutely shameful. How dare they defy the will of Comcast?
Unelected FCC commissioners making decisions that will have a huge impact on the future of communications in this country... I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Why does the FCC not do what it is supposed to do, regulating who can use what bands of airwaves, but is quite happy to throw a bunch of unconstitutional fines around for exposing a "forbidden" section of epidermis or saying a "forbidden" word if they don't like the show?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
If anyone hasn't already noticed, print media is dying. Prime example would be Tribune Co., but you could also look at the New York Times. Circulation is dropping rapidly, and digital presence will soon be as, if not more, important than print editions.
On a related note, I really missed being able to pick up a copy of the Weekly World News last week while I was traveling. Their crosswords were always great on the plane.
As an Englishman, the one flaw in my inborn sense of cultural superiority has been the lack of Rupert Murdoch owned tabloids in America. Thank you, FCC.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
I for one,, welcome our comdotslashcasting overlords.
....too much?
I have karma to burn so feel free to send this to offtopic land, but can we just get a sitewide ban on these lame spam links please? 3 or 4 in this thread alone!
Bill Moyers just did a piece on this Monday evening:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12142007/watch2.html
While fascinating, it was also one of the most horrific examples I have recently seen of a runaway Executive Branch. Once again we, as US citizens, need to rely upon our elected officials in Congress. Who knows how well that will turn out......
I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
* the newspaper dies, in favor of locally-owned websites that provide the same info, networked across other regional/local sites to become a loosely-knit news org in its own right (and unlike FreeBSD, the megacorp-owned newspaper really is losing relevance and readership to the web site... now if only these sites could start talking to each other).
* the independant papers, stations, and etc. pick up credibility among the more clued-in folks out there (and in many areas, already has. Most big towns/cities have one or more free weekly papers that do very well by giving the paper away for free and charging for ads).
* CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. start losing eyeballs to more regionally-oriented channels (e.g. NWCN in the Portland-Seattle corridor, where you get news that's local enough to matter directly, but regional and global enough to keep you apprised of stuff you might want or need to know. Yes it's run by Comcast, but it does open more than a couple of doors to competing local interests who want to do similar things).
* Local indie stations get a larger audience as propaganda-weary listeners decide that they really don't like their news in 'Clear-Channel-beige' anymore. If my little corner of the planet is any indication, it's already begun to happen.
While these may or may not ever occur, the possibilities are there, and as naive as it may sound, I tend to put at least a little faith in the ability of a contrary and loud-mouthed population such as that found in the US to devise their own alternate solutions to media-megacorp-induced propaganda.
IMHO, Yellow Journalism has never really went away - it merely diversified. We merely get glimpses and bits of occasional integrity swimming in an ocean of propagandistic crap, with alternating currents of barely-masked opinion clashing against each other on a constant basis.
In either case, I get more news off the Internet now, and from non-established sources (e.g. not CNN, not Fox, not the NYT)... I suspect that more of my fellow humans do as well - more than any media corp would ever be willing to admit, even to themselves.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Quoth the article header: " On the same day the FCC voted 3 to 2 (by a different split) to cap the size of any cable company at 30% of the nationwide market, a limit Comcast is up against."
How the hell does that work, anyhow? Does the ISP start turning down new subscribers ("Sorry folks, we're all full up on business here, please try our competition")?
I've got to be misunderstanding it somehow. Please help me out here.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Spam - don't follow the link
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
I sense a recent stream of FCC rulings against Comcast and the cable industry to the benefit of AT&T/Verizon...? Wikipedia article doesn't show money/interest trails, though.
And yet 11 months in and they have yet to decide anything about the sirius/XM merger.
Good work, what a flaming mess of a country this has turned into.
If Congress genuinely opposed the maneuver, couldn't they simply pass a law enacting the restrictions they wanted? My understanding is that executive departments need to operate within the law. The legislative decides, the executive abides.
Now, if the bought and paid for congressmen just wanted to appear populist while not actually doing anything, I suppose simply speaking out against the decision would do fine.If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
What is the big deal with that site anyway? What do they get out of publicizing their 'city'?
i may start an unlicensed radio station using low power of course and just broadcast for 30 minutes to an hour every evening, garnering my news from the intertubes, paying close attention to foreign press from the EU & Canada, might as well since the media in the USA all seem to all sound the same anyway...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This could save print journalism.
The other parts are interesting, too, but the part that grabbed me is that this permits large radio and television conglomerates to prop up the ailing print newspaper media, which in the US anyway, is in dire need of propping.
I think it's actually a good thing that they are now allowing the purchases of these companies, which would otherwise go out of business.
As to the Comcast issue - it's not this particular part of the public being ignored - if anything, I'd like to see the cable infrastructure nationalized and leased out to the highest bidder; it would save me on property taxes, too.
-- Terry
Surprise Surprise. Did anybody actually expect...something else? The Party rules. Party on! I hope that you all understand that if you continue elect the Party into office, it can only get worse. You have my personal guarantee on that.
What?
what about tinyurl and proxied links to spam sites? maybe a link report system or a seperate modifier like -1 spam or something like that w/ a few metamods to confirm/deny the mod so rogue mods can't ditch legit links
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
But I sincerely doubt they will ever take north America, and by that I mean Mexico, USA and Canada. We got way too many guns in the hands of joe citizenry to put up with much sharia nonsense. Now the three nations may squabble with each other over this and that, and we do it all the time, but push comes to shove, the hockey, football and soccer players all agree on one thing-, well two things after beer-we like it here like it is, thanks. NO ONE is going to attempt a land invasion of north america, we would call that a target rich environment. You Europeans can use harsh language against them, you've been deballed by your governments and faked out this is a "good idea".
Now I am all for getting out of the middle east, and leaving all those folks alone to sort their own crap out, and also working triple overtime to come up with a replacement for oil. If that ain't enough, and they want to expand into some global caliphate-well it just isn't happening. We won't put up with it, Russia won't, China won't and India won't. That should be sufficient I think.
They are surrounded and completely outgunned now, so I don't expect them to expand much past old europe (you guys are being pretty stupid there really, wake up and smell the "arabica") and africa.
And as soon as we have a lot more alternative energy out there, making their oil less worthwhile to fork over hard cash for, they will collapse because they don't *do anything* but sell oil and try to manipulate the markets. This is eventually going to backfire on them with western emergency protectionism and seizures of assets (it'll happen, inevitable now), and I bet the younger folks will just get sick and tired of those old muslim mullahs saying they can't have any fun (it boils down to that, it is illegal to have any fun at all there) eventually and string 'em all up. Solve a lot of problems that way. And it really is up to the younger folks over there to reject the middle ages and come into the modern times, their call.
It's not just the newspapers that this affects, it affects ALL the media in these major cities.
This means that, in theory, someone could buy up most/all the TV stations and radio stations in addition to the print media and have a virtual lock on entire cities and possibly entire regions.
I can't see how this could be a good thing. Then again, I like many different sources of information...
I think our only salvation is that online media is becoming the prime source for news.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
And I say that I don't care as a firm representative of the not giving a damn party. As questionable as ownership restrictions were in the Before Internet Time, the availability of infinite platforms from which to speak from has removed any value whatsoever and means the restrictions are nothing more than the gov't inserting it's much too large nose into business that isn't a problem to begin with.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
The founders wrote into the constitution the supreme court justices, who also aren't elected. Why would the founders be appalled by the office of FCC commissioner?
These decisions only affect Media version 3.11. Now, we have true freedom of speech and the press with the Internet, the New Media. Why should we really care about the biased, exploitative, trashy cesspool that is Old Media?
One gets an additional person added to the population of their town for each person that visits the town's page (one per day per person).
What right does the FCC have to tell Comcast it can't control more than 30% of the market? Sure, Comcast isn't the greatest cable company in the U.S., but is better than most. What about the millions of people suffering under Mediacom or Charter? I bet they'd gladly take Comcast over their current crap provider (and rumor has it Comcast has even considered buying out smaller rivals) Small regional cable companies like Mediacom and Charter offer terrible programming and mediocre service compared to Comcast -- But thanks to the FCC , millions are stuck with idiotic companies.
Comcast isn't perfect. They limit Bittorrent seeding and they have invisi-caps, albeit much higher than Cox's. Yet, their 16/1 broadband for $52.95/month is actually a decent offering, especially compared to DSL's abysmal speeds for 95% of Americans.
Comcast's video service is pretty solid and it's improved a lot in the past few years, aside from occassional glitches and buggy DVR software. Not as many HD channels as satellite, but compared to even TimeWarner, Comcast has impressive HD On-demand using Switched Digital Video, good promotional pricing, and now that they're upgrading to 1Ghz systems Comcast is starting to offer 30 or 40 HD channels in some areas.
It's not like Comcast is even close to being able to exert monopoly power for any of the services they offer. This is because so many substitutes exist -- for video, there's Satellite, broadcast, U-verse, Fios, streaming sites like YouTube, iTunes/iPod, cell phone video. For internet, there's Wi-Max, 3G, EDGE, DSL, Dial-Up, and Dedicated Lines.
MAYBE if Comcast had so much power they could jack up prices exorbitantly without getting eaten alive by competition, then the FCC would have a case. But as it is, the FCC's decision is dead wrong. The ruling marks yet another by Kevin Martin to hurt the cable companies and help the telco companies. I wonder if there's some ulterior motive to Martin's seemingly anti-cable, pro-telco agenda as of late? Either way, thanks to the FCC, consumers lose.
"Newspaper"
"News what?"
"Newspaper"
"What paper?"
"Newspaper"
"What what?"
"Ah, never mind."
-g.
When Bush was "selected" back in November 2000, all of my friends were very depressed, moping around saying "Our country's progress has just been turned back 25 years."
I guess it's at least 32 years now.
Jory
You can get it for $160-ish from some American Christmaslight stores (Yes, crazy!), or you can get it for 160 *EUROS* directly from the PCI MAX people. It's a PCI card that you plugin to your computer -- instant broadcasting.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Are you volunteering to be the meta moderator that verifies all of the links that redirect to goat.cx?
Unless you meant to imply that the elected officials are the ones that do less damage? It is so hard to tell what was meant when the statements are so vague.
Our elected officials are starting to find it a bit harder to shove legislation we-the-people oppose down our throats (suddenoutbreakofcommonsense amongst the people, realizing that they actually DO control the government like they are supposed to, but only when they make the effort?) - whereas the unelected have no need to concern themselves with constituents.
Of course the 24 hour news cycle doesn't really have any impact on my chances of scoring that new job I want.......
I think the whole point of TFA is that the news has a great impact for just about any part of our life. (how's that for vague!)
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
good point. now what?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Do the people even matter anymore, or is it a government by business and for business?
Why dont we just have one media outlet, controlled by the government. At least that way we'll know for sure its all bullshit. Why even have the 6 media giants now? Lets just have 1. There is no room for truth and justice in our new America... so lets just end the facade.
The government exists for business, and the people get screwed. The laws apply to the poor, to protect the rich overlords from being slaughtered for the injustice they impose on the masses.
I think its about time for the next Paris Hilton cunt slip headline on cnn. Sorry boys in iraq, you're dieing and its not important to any of us in America. Not George Bush and not Hillary Clinton.... or any of the other republican/democrat muppets that we call "civil servants"
The FCC has for a long time not represented the interests of the citizens of the United States. What is needed is to wreck what currently stands and replace it.
How about selecting from a pool of those with either radio amateur or general radiotelephone licenses. Then narrow it to include only those with info, cs, or engineering degrees. From there do lottery selection for FCC commissioners.
I suspect what we'd see out the other end is a much fairer system for bandwidth auctions, management, and one that would be anti-consolidation.
Make sure you have the show url option enabled, and click on nothing suspect. Just dampen your natural curiosity, or you'll end up like the cat.
I would just as soon label the link comments as funny, for the mental image of all the poor souls who ignore common sense and click anyway.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
that is until the trolls start using image hosting domains to host goatse under an innocent looking link.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
This is not any kind of Good. And it has its roots back with none other than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who slammed affirmative action programs designed to maintain and to promote diversity. http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2007/12/kingcast-provides-clarence-thomas.html He intentionally delayed a vote back in '91 that would have expanded protections for women in media. He delayed the vote because he thought it would have a negative impact on his Supreme Court Judicial appointment, and not only that, he really applied strict scrutiny instead of the mid-level scrutiny used in sex cases. "He said in the decision that the Federal Communications Commission's policy of giving preference to women was unconstitutional because it denied equal protection of the laws to white men." The decision flew in the face of recent case law established by the Brennan Decision in Metromedia v. FCC as noted in these NYTimes links one and two (at my blawg entry above).
You posted that comment on an internet news site. Just thought I'd point that out.
Was the link deleted or did the threads move around?
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
Next time they should bribe voters using a plain unmarked briefcase as opposed to a canvas sack with dollar sign on it.
PCI MAX is only 1 watt max :) My friend has had no problem for years...
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Seriously, anyone dumb enough to sink cash into a newspaper deserves to lose their money. Newspapers are irrelevant.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Our kids are probably going to be saying the same thing about the channels of information that our generation utilizes.
I'm just looking at it as a business proposition. No one in their right mind whose goal is to make money would buy a newspaper today. You won't be spreading your evil conglomerate message for very long if you're forced to finance debt in this environment!
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Could it be that the Web is the new home of the modern day Yellow Journalists?
...."
Trolls have found the Contrast Equation. "The opposite of sensibility is
Take your choice of Nonsensical, Insulting, Bioschlock, FanDude, ShriekingChimp, RazorLiner, LinkSeller, or InverseOnion. Those are like "Spray Paint Artists".
The middle line in between are the mostly sincere writers who may mean well, but whose perspective is skewed enough to require a seriously critical eye while reading.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The largest contributors to... the Clinton, Obama and Romney campaigns are
Goldman Sachs... They must want something quite badly...
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00000019&cycle=2008
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00000286&cycle=2008
Giuliani's top contributor is Ernst & Young, but the banks are up there too.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00009908&cycle=2008
The same people giving money to both sides... Almost as if they don't care who wins. Funny that, eh...
Deleted
your line of thinking is dangerous
>you first assume that "newspaper as we know it is circling the drain"
While it is true that some smaller market and niche newspapers are making cuts or halting publication, this hardly counts as "circling the drain"...newsmedia such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and thousands of newspapers of record in hometowns across the U.S. are as relevant and as read as ever.
Papers provide reporting, advertising, and editorial functions. These services will always be in need. What's really changing is the MEDIUM by which people access those services. Most papers have online editions now.
>second, you downplay the effect of this FCC ruling on communications in the U.S.
This is yet another example of neo-con policies favoring inefficient anarcho-capitalist money hoarding over the desperate need of the 4th estate to remain independent and free to report from a community-oriented editorial perspective. The media isn't as good as it could be of course, but rulings like these just make it easier to conglomerate and stifle local reporting and homogenizes reporting and editorial functions at the community level.
Do you really want a guy 5 states away from you reporting on local news in your area and owned by a global conglomerate? What about newspaper articles that are as informative and readable as a spam email for free viagra? this is what this FCC policy will bring us closer to
Thank you Dave Raggett
after the horses have all been shot because they had contracted rabies.
With podcasting enabling people (real people, not just statistics on the demographics,) to share media without censorship, via RSS on the client side and servers on the 'caster side.
Who gives a flying f.., uh, darn, what those grit suckers think. (Hell, ClearChanel's already gone.)
They are so out of touch with the reality of what's coming down the 'pike that its wryly amusing.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Kevin Martin has eclipsed Micheal Powell as the largest corporate shill to sit as FCC chairman.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
this *is* and entertainment site.
Quack, quack.
... too bad rationality tends to prevail. That is, with mass ownership self interested media seeding is easier, and while we may be told that X (where X is seeded opportunism) is good, the actual personal worth of X cannot be so easily manufactured. If it's a polished turd, it's still a turd. There is a *huge* profit to be made in spamming... but at a huge cost to the perception of the spammer. Soon they are painted as crap spewers... and have the respect deserved of crap spewers. A shame, perhaps, as mass broadcast can be very good (see BBC, PBS, Discovery (on occasion), etc). Those that know this will find ways to the good stuff, and rationality will prevail when the crap spewers tire of their own sickening reflection.
Greasemonkey plugin to trim ac's with links? Metamod should deal with this.
I just created the new city of Fuckerton, USA.
This space available.
Older folks still read newspapers and vote in greater numbers than younger folks.
No they don't (read newspapers) - they hate today's media. By and large they have moved onlline.
All the older people I know (my family, plus other people's family) are all online. Even if they don't have a computer they just use the library - wander down to the library sometime and have a look at who is using the systems.
If old people are still reading newspapers, how come readership is dropping dramatically across the country - we've not past the bell curve of baby boomers really dying in large numbers yet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So ... if you write up a resume, throw it around to various companies....how is exactly is that different then campaigning to get elected for a government position ?
I'm not allowed to know about, and thus attack, the other people interviewing for the same job.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I too will risk karma to to throw an idea about the spamming issue
Why doesn't slashdot just track the IP addresses and blacklist them? This myminicity bs, goatse troll, pony fucker, gay erotic novel writer
Make SELinux enforcing again!
We aren't the ones that have cameras every fortnaught on the roads and every street corner (or whatever quirky unit they might use).
Just saying. Perhaps evil is not what and where you think it is.
P.S. Great Britan is not evil either. Just making a point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Haven't you looked at subscription rates for newspapers? The only people that get them anymore are coupon collectors. Everyone else is getting the news they like online.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What do they want? They probably want to try and make sure that the Democrats don't come in and riase the capital gains tax back up to 25% and crash the market!
-
Yes, it's "Save us from a global depression, please."
They raise prices until enough people leave.
> In either case, I get more news off the Internet now, and from non-established sources
/.? I'm not joking, apart from the web versions of the established news sources, I seem to get much of my news from special interest sources like /. or the site specializing in bike racing. The journalistic standards are horrible, but then again, so are they in the establish sources. They are invariably wrong about subjects I have first or second hand knowledge off. But the specialist sources tend to be closer to the primary sources for the stories, where you can get the real information.
> (e.g. not CNN, not Fox, not the NYT)..
Like
In older science fiction novels, people could get personalized versions of the generic newspapers, with emphasis on the stuff they were interested in. Today, we create our own "personalized newspapers" by combining various specialized news sources.
You know, I don't even disagree with you, but you are one giant blubbering vagina.
25% on Capital gains is not outrageous (I'm more for a 5% tax or, better yet, no tax on capital gains) and probably will lower revenues collected from capital gains, however Edwards wants to raise the rates to around 35% or 38% which is coming close to usury and revenues will be sure to drop as people won't realize their gains as often.
--mike
Oh and while I'm at it... The US Army, US Navy and US Airforce are some of the largest contributors to Ron Paul's campaign...
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00005906&cycle=2008
Interesting point of view on the policy towards Iraq.
Deleted
A lot of people still read the newspaper ... hell, I'm only 20 and I read the Financial Times.
I do see some comparison between Bin Laden and Paris. One drive his followers to suicide bombs, and the other just makes people want to slit their wrists.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Guess the only thing to do is harass the people we actually did elect. Please look over and sign the petition from StopBigMedia!! http://action.freepress.net/campaign/sbmopenletter/
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
A lot of people still listen to radio. Doesn't change the fact that buying a radio station is a bad proposition.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Newspapers are irrelevant.
I'm not convinced. They may need to change their model, however.
Besides television networks, who else hires reporters? Most of what I see on the Web is a discussion of what has been already been reported, or like Slashdot, simply a pointer to someone who has reported something.
Highly profitable? Perhaps not. Irrelevant? I'm not so sure.
Since when does the FCC have anything to do with newspapers?
The FCC's own website says:
"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions."
What is there about "radio, television, wire, satellite and cable" that the FCC doesn't understand?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I mean, come on, a country that will happily elect obviously mentally deficient people over and over again is not the kind of place where you will find the kind of open-mindedness and curiosity that ultimately fuels good journalism.
Parent has it exactly right. While banging the drum of "founding fathers wanted a free press" you ignore the idea the the very same founding fathers distrusted government intensely.
I do enjoy watching you pick and choose which of the founding fathers' positions you support, and which you... forget about... in order to pretend you have a tenable position.
The head of the fcc should get cancer and die. (-Howard Stern :))
California's political capital, and we've got *one*: The Sacramento Bee.
We USED to have two (The Bee & The Mercury), but then the Bee bought Mercury and that was the end of any chance of unbiased reporting.
My little brother & I used to deliver the Bee back when they had competition.
The paper had to be neat, properly ordered, folded, properly wrapped for the weather, & delivered NLT 5am (6am on Sundays).
Now, I'm lucky if I get my paper by 7am, it's NEVER in order, & rarely "neat" nor folded.
I have to spend the first thirty minutes just restructuring the damned thing so it looks like I might have purchased it from a publication that gave a damn about its image.
(If there was a 'box anywhere near, I'd walk to it and buy it every morning - at least then I'd get a usable copy.)
Complaining has done absolutely *nothing* - they don't care, there IS no competition in this town.
On any given day, you'll be hard-pressed to find ANY page that does not include an ad (and more-often-than-not, a pair of full-page, full-colour ads back-to-back), and the front-page, above-the-fold story is usualy something better left to the Sports or Entertainment section.
Stories about our government giving us the shaft?
Those are buried as single paragraph blurbs in the side-bar on page Z-257 in the middle of the Viagra & "Massage Therapist" ads.
If you want NEWS in this town, you go online for it & get it from the API, Reuters, BBC, CNN, NBC, et al.
Because the ONE local newspaper we have is more an advertising supplement & "touchy-feely" rag unfit for lining the parrot cage.
There is no valid reason to violate the right of individuals and their agents to own as much of something as they are able.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
The same people giving money to both sides... Almost as if they don't care who wins. Funny that, eh...
Because companies absolutely love spending twice the money necessary for these favors?
Depending on your tax rate, you can have 5% capital gains.
Raising cap gains would probably freak the market out, or at least a lot of my clients. As far as tax planning goes it would rip up the world of taxable accounts. Taxed twice on investments? 33% once then 25% on long term gains? Yuck. Who would want to move money around then? It would incent people to save more into retirement plans, attaching a lot of unnecessary strings to that money. So, unless Congress is willing to add many more incentives to IRAs, Roths, and other retirement vehicles, upping capital gains might not be in the country's best interest (no pun intended).
We talk about a negative savings rate in this country. Raising capital gains will not incent people to save money if it's going to be taxed... what happens in an emergency and they have to sell off assets? People already don't save enough taxable money, in my experience (I'm a financial planner), but I may have an inadequate selection of people.
The point isn't just the average consumer. It's the big guns, too. If capital gains go up, what about fund distributions at the end of each year? How does a change in cap gains affect future tax planning? It would really hurt in more ways than one, and could be the death knell for a faltering economy if things slide for another year or two.
No capital gains? That'd be interesting, but never going to happen. That's a different ball of political/financial wax, though.
-
Gah, I'm sorry mods. I ranted there, and it's totally off topic.
-
Is it really off topic? Thanks for your reply.
--Mike
I've always thought that to be the case. The real differences between the electable candidates from either party are so minute as to be almost laughable. It's not that hard to imagine most of the front runners being members of the opposite party
Exactly right. The libertarians ignore how fundamentally difficult it is for new players to enter the so-called free market. Just because we have "blogs" now doesn't mean the playing field is level and the ordinary guy can just jump into the media business
Why not just make capital gains a progressive tax, like income is now? Hell, just make it count as income. And before you rant about how "then no one will invest" bullshit. People will still invest, because otherwise they actually have to spend hours of their lives working to make money. The only way to have income without clocking in to a job, is to have capital investments. Most people don't make all that much off of their investments, but the wealthiest 20% of society owns 84% of the investments,http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html yet they pay half of the tax rate as the working class. And the working class has to actually show up to work. If anything the tax rates between income and capital gains should be swapped. I doubt the billionaires of our country would suddenly drop all of their investments because of a 16% tax increase, they will still make more per year that the median lifetime income. They will still have mansions and private planes and month long vacations to their beach front place in Bora Bora. Where as a 16% tax drop for middle America would make a huge difference in the lives of millions of people. Everyone could afford insurance with that, or have the option of getting their kids out of crappy public schools, or maybe just get out of the debit that is strangling the middle class.
Taxed twice on investments? 33% once then 25% on long term gains? Yuck.
No one will ever pay income and then capital gains on the same money, don't be obtuse. The capital gains is only paid on the additional money brought in by the investment, so that is a different stream of income.
We are all just people.
Alright, saying no one will invest may be an exaggeration, I will give you that. I want to keep this discussion productive, so please don't take offense at my arguments, merely understand that I make my living from educating and helping people and wish to clarify/dispel prejudices, ignorance, and general misunderstanding. However, please feel free to contradict and point out any missteps.
I have a number of issues with this article, I can address that in a minute.
I would first like to cite the article you mention:
"In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2001, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%"
What level of wealth are we talking here? I want hard numbers that cut this pie into rational pieces. Does that 1% start at 1 million? 10 million? How about assets? Before we can have a reasonable financial discussion, I would prefer harder numbers from something that seems so (pardon the phrase) liberal/populist. My preference is rational numbers and skepticism even with those. Figures don't lie, but liars figure, and it sounds like we migth all be doing/seeing some figuring here.
"...just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%"
If they have 84% of the wealth, does it make sense that the market is mostly made up of those people's money? It would stand to reason that they are the people moving the market from day to day, and the ones who would be affected/concerned most by a change in capital gains, and so would move the market should that change occur.
The other 16%? I'm sorry to say it, but your average joe knows next to nothing about finance for a reason: He isn't involved, typically. Whether he should be, or should not be, and other issues are not the point right now (are they?), but I would be very interested in discussing, perhaps elsewhere over email or in another forum, the problem faced by this lack of education, the fleecing of the lower-middle class by investment firms(annuity salesmen many times) and defined contribution providers, the disappearance of defined benefit(pension) plans and the ultimate effect on the blue collar worker.
You make an interesting point about progressive rates, however capital gains *are* progressive right now, in a way. If one is in the 15% or lower tax bracket, capital gains are 5% not 15%. Also, for those in low tax brackets, the government matches money on IRA contributions.
Now, let's just say that Capital gains *did* become progressive. It's not a bad idea on the surface, and I applaud the thought. However, the market is not necessarily what it seems. An individual invests, and many times they will put money into a mutual fund, by themselves or (often, and blindly) through work. That fund manager moves money around, not just the individual investor. Now, I realize that to have an indomitable point here, I would have to dredge up figures on percentages of how much money in the market is in stock and how much of that stock is in mutual funds, but they could skew those figures with closed-end funds, Separately Managed Accounts, and a whole host of other variables. Back to the point, though:
If you make cap gains progressive, and the big boys move money around in an attempt to make money for a fund (there-by making money for the average joe and themselves I'm sure), suddenly those gains of millions of dollars are taxed at a progressively high rate. That gets passed through to the average investor. So, who does it really tax? It still taxes the "little guys". If you want to talk about IRAs and tax deferred money, the fund companies who sponsor those plans would probably just raise their fees to cover things, hurting the little guy.
If we want to talk individual stocks, that is a WHOLE different ball of wax, and we get into diversification vs. return and what, mathematically,
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