US Lawmakers Propose New Net Neutrality Bill

An anonymous reader brings news that Net Neutrality legislation is making another comeback. A new bill, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), would make ISPs who fail to provide service in a non-discriminatory manner subject to anti-trust violations. From the NYTimes: "'The bill squarely addresses the issue of the enormous market power of the telephone and cable companies as the providers of 98 percent of the broadband service in the country,' said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. But broadband providers and some congressional Republicans have argued that net neutrality legislation isn't necessary. The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week."

Comments

Not necessary?

[rukkyg]

If you think a law isn't necessary, and a bunch of other people do, then why wouldn't you just approve it? From your perspective, the law would have no effect, positive or negative. To the other people, you look like you agree with them. Win-Win.

Therefore I conclude, that large companies and congressional Republicans are lying. Of course, that was really my thought before I read this article.

Re:Not necessary?

[JustKidding]

Indeed. Ofcourse, when they argue that it would "hamper investments in networks", they mean that the providers won't be able to extort money from content providers *and* consumers at the same time, money which, obviously, would be spend on improving the network.

I would think not having such a bill would hamper investments. There is much money to be made in creating an artificially low supply of bandwidth.

Re:Not necessary?

[JamesRose]

Because it causes situations, an old man heckling at the back of a labour party conference gets wrestled to the ground and arrested under "unnecessary" anti-terror laws.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme]

Passing unnecessary laws just to make people happy is inefficient, and causes the system to become over-burdened as people try to game the new law for their own benefit, can cause unintended consequences in relation to other, more well-established laws (over-riding certain parts of an older bill, for example).

Let me ask you this, do you think it's a great idea to add a new procedure/function/module to a piece of software, that definitely interacts with the previously written and tested code, if you think that new code is unnecessary, just to make a PHB happy?

For the record, I do think net neutrality laws are necessary. I don't think however, that unnecessary laws are harmless.

Re:Not necessary?

[digitig]

Stricly, "detained" rather than "arrested" (it makes a difference -- he can still travel from the UK to USA under the visa waiver program, for instance, which I understand he couldn't had he been arrested). But your point stands -- unnecessary legislation does have a cost.

Re:Not necessary?

[rukkyg]

I don't think that's a valid comparison. In your example, there is one PHB. In the net neutrality example, there are many people.

I can draw an analogy to pharmacies. Currently, there are fundamentalist Christians who won't fill prescriptions for contraception. This should be illegal. A pharmacy should be drug-neutral. I think the same thing applies to ISPs. If fundamentalist Christians started their own ISP, they might block things on the internet as being anti-Christian. And what if this company was the only one in a certain area. Since ISPs are a natural near-monopoly, this is almost certainty. Then there are people who are denied rights. What's to stop Comcast from deciding that youtube is too good of competition to its cable offerings and then just throttling or cutting off access to youtube? Nothing! And if Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc. all decided at once that YouTube was evil, and blocked it. What could anyone do to stop it under current laws? Nothing. YouTube is dumb though. What if they cut off all anti-corporate sites, democratic and/or republican sites, foreign sites... There's nothing to protect the public from the corporations' huge ability to basically cut off the country from information for all practical purposes. Just because they haven't done it so far, doesn't mean that we don't need a law to protect us from it.

Re:Not necessary?

[aldousd666]

I'd agree with you that unnecessary laws aren't harmless and that the GP's conclusions don't logically follow from his arguments.

But, I still don't trust that we have the experts necessary in the government to enforce this correctly and it may still end up hampering invesetments.

If I'm an investor, I'd be less likely to put my money into a company constructing infrastructure resources that aren't in their power to control, especially when it's known up front that the benefit of the resources might not actually come back as strong in kind to the company who actually ponies up to build it. I might just look elsewhere to put my money. (Similarly, you'd be less likely to put your money in a bank that has a zero percent interest rate, solely for the convenience of using ATM machines.) Like maybe I'd buy stock in Microsoft, who's going to be able to excercise the necessary discretion to get a return for the cash.

Investors drive the economy. They drive it before consumers have a chance to vote for the products and services with their dollars by providing capital to create and improve the choices for consumers. They're the enablers of it all. The benefit to society as a whole is a side effect of investors serving their own interests. You cannot legislate your way around this, no matter how sad (or mad) it makes you to think about this truth.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme]

You've argued that net neutrality is necessary (which I agree with, see my original post), and missed the point completely.

Unnecessary laws are bad laws, and are inherently wasteful. Let me repeat that. Truly unnecessary laws are wasteful.

If your elected representative really believes a law is unnecessary, that person should fight implementation of that law. If, on the other hand (as I suspect is the case here), your elected representative has been purchased by the telcos and cable barons, then that rep should be impeached, fired, whatever.

You've succumbed to Slashdot disease, the primary symptom of which is to ferociously attack a parallel example or metaphor, and forget to argue the point at issue.

Re:Not necessary?

[rukkyg]

Sorry, I misread your last statement as saying net neutrality was unnecessary.

Re:Not necessary?

[m.ducharme]

I was going to write a long, thoughtful post in reply to yours, then I noticed the Ayn Rand quote in your sig. Sorry, I don't argue with religious fanatics.

Re:Not necessary?

[aldousd666]

I have no religion. Not even Ayn Rand. I just liked the book, and I can relate to a bunch of it. But if my liking of a book somehow excuses your thoughtfulness, then well I'm happy to have helped you out.

Re:Not necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me ask you this, do you think it's a great idea to add a new procedure/function/module to a piece of software, that definitely interacts with the previously written and tested code, if you think that new code is unnecessary, just to make a PHB happy?

Yes, I think it's a great idea. I do this ALL the time and personally I've found that it helps me to keep my job, and I've always found being employed to be a much better situation than waiting for my unemployment check.

Re:Not necessary?

[RingDev]

If I'm an investor, I'd be less likely to put my money into a company constructing infrastructure resources that aren't in their power to control So you wouldn't consider investing in Power companies? Or Oil/Gas production companies? or telecoms? You're cutting out an awful lot of highly profitable and stable investment opportunities. But I guess if you prefer the unregulated industries, there are a whole lot of penny stock options for you. I've got some SCO shares for sale if you'd like ;)

Just trying to follow the dots here.

You are an investor.
Your local ISP provides an investment oppertunity.
Your local ISP has a near monopoly on the market.
The federal government passes a law the limits your ISP's behavior.
Your local ISP is still a near monopoly.
Your local ISP needs to improve it's infrastructure to meet consumer demand and follow the new limitations.
Your local ISP now has a reason to seek more investors.
Your local ISP now has more hard assets, a greater total value, a higher market cap, and still next to no competition.

So yeah, maybe there is a year in there where profit margins are cut slightly to offset the cost of improving the infrastructure, but the end result is that the consumers don't get screwed, there are more investment opportunities, and your investment's growth likely remains stable or increases.

Other than a slight change in investment value in the time between the need for money and the acquisition of assets, it really doesn't look (to my armchair forecasting) to be a major problem.

(Similarly, you'd be less likely to put your money in a bank that has a zero percent interest rate, solely for the convenience of using ATM machines.) But would you invest in a consumer bank that did not have ATM's? Probably not, because even though it is your investment that gets them off the ground, it is the consumers who pay to keep it going. And if the bank does not provide the services that the consumers demand, it's going to be unprofitable, which is going to make your investment next to worthless in short order.

-Rick

Re:Not necessary?

[zippthorne]

"So you wouldn't consider investing in Power companies? Or Oil/Gas production companies? or telecoms? You're cutting out an awful lot of highly profitable and stable investment opportunities"

Power companies are a steady income, by virtue of their monopolies. But they're not particularly exciting, due to their cost+ style pricing.

Oil companies, post "windfall profits tax" would be a terrible investment.

Telecoms.. Well, a few seem to have done okay so far, but quite a few have failed completely. Did you bet on the right one?

Every industry is regulated. But that doesn't mean that all regulation is bearable. OR that bearable regulation doesn't affect investment patterns.

Re:Not necessary?

[Jason Levine]

In general, my "keep government small and out of our lives" sensibilities would be opposed to a Network Neutrality bill. I'd be afraid that they would muck things up too much. However, the only thing worse than government interference is giant corporations run amok. At least the government (somewhat) answers to the public. Giant corporations answer only to shareholders. In the case of ISPs, they also hold near-monopoly power. Want a broadband Internet connection? You can go with the Cable Company or the Phone Company. Don't like that the Cable Company is blocking bittorrent? What about the Phone Company who has decided that Slashdot will be slowed to dial-up speeds unless Slashdot pays the Phone Company for the right to reach the Phone Company's users? Don't like either? Well, either pick the lesser of two evils or go back to dial-up. The Giant ISP Companies have already either made my examples real (bittorrent throttling) or have threatened to do it (Ed Whittacre's "content providers are using my pipes for free" speeches). If they had their way, you would pay them for access to the Internet and then Internet sites would have to pay them for access to you. Our only hope against these giant companies is the government.

Re:Not necessary?

[Em Adespoton]

Here's the missing piece of your argument:

The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week. It's easy to argue the market is becoming more competitive when the starting point is 0. It's also true that net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in the 1 or 2 broadband networks currently in place -- because people would be investing in the alternative networks instead.

Talk about one-sided arguments. This is why unnecessary laws != net neutrality laws, and why net neutrality laws are necessary.

Re:Not necessary?

[BooRolla]

If that was anywhere near to being the biggest concern with the current US lawmaking, I'd be so excited I could hammer nails with my wiener.

Re:Not necessary?

[Fatal67]

Or.. try this..

Your local ISP spent billions to build out an infrastructure to provide services.

Your local ISP has a business model that works and allows them to provide services.

Your not so local content company wants to be able to use that infrastructure 100% without paying a penny to the company that built that infrastructure or they may go out of business because they can't use someone else's resources for free.

Your not so local government makes laws that forces your ISP to give their infrastructure to these other companies for free.

Your local ISP can no longer afford to subsidize the youtubes and vonages of the world and goes out of business.

Or, maybe they just have to change their business model. You now pay for every bit you use instead of the all you can eat model. (See, TW, Comcast, Cox, and the rest of the world for examples).

Your local ISP had to change their business model to meet the new regulations and you get to pay for it.

Personally, I'm glad. I'm not a p2p thief. I don't run a server from my home in violation of my AUP. I don't do more than 8 gigs a day, so it won't cost me anything extra.

A nice side effect is that when you have to pay per meg or gig or bit, downloading a song or movie now has a real price associated with it. If it costs you 8 bucks to download a HD movie that is a screen cap from a theater or 10 bucks to go buy it on DVD, most people will go buy it.

If it costs me a couple bucks for every movie I seed, each time it is downloaded from me, I won't be seeding very much.

I really like the idea of charging by bit. It should address the whole net neutrality issue very well. As the people that were using 10+ gig of bandwidth a day will now get to help pay for the network upgrades. Everyone wins, except for p2p because not many people will want to pay for you to download from them.

And life goes on. I guess it's better than the throttling that is/was in place, but I'm not a big p2p guy so that had no impact on me anyway.

Ironic that the people who complained the loudest will now have to pay the most.

Yup, some legislation can be a real good thing.

Re:Not necessary?

[RingDev]

Your not so local content company wants to be able to use that infrastructure 100% without paying a penny to the company that built that infrastructure or they may go out of business because they can't use someone else's resources for free. Uhh, not sure where that came from as it has nothing to do with net neutrality. And last I heard, local content companies have to lease last mile lines from the owning company. Those companies which were subsidies heavily by the government and our tax dollars.

Your not so local government makes laws that forces your ISP to give their infrastructure to these other companies for free. Still curious on which law this is?

Your local ISP can no longer afford to subsidize the youtubes and vonages of the world and goes out of business. How is my local ISP subsidizing YouTube? YouTube has it's own ISP, they pay hansomely to push their bandwidth out. My local ISP isn't paying YouTube. Sure, YouTube's traffic crosses my ISP's network, but I am paying for that traffic. So I'm not really sure on how my ISP is subsidizing YouTube.

Your local ISP had to change their business model to meet the new regulations and you get to pay for it. Which would likely net-change nothing. They'd use gimmicks like minutes in the cell phone business, and most people's bills would remain relatively unchanged. The could use supply and demand arguements to increase costs to cut down on demand to lower infrastructure growth costs and pad the profit margins. If they get out of line with the billing, it would likely result in further regulation by the government and push ISPs 1 step closer to becoming a municipal service like water, power, gas, etc...

I really like the idea of charging by bit. It should address the whole net neutrality issue very well. As the people that were using 10+ gig of bandwidth a day will now get to help pay for the network upgrades. Everyone wins, except for p2p because not many people will want to pay for you to download from them. I highly doubt it would solve the NN issue. By increasing the price of the same service it would reduce demand. With reduced demand they wouldn't need to improve the infrastructure. With out improvements to the infrastructure, there is nothing to spend the money on except lawyers, lobbyists, and CEOs. Applying a social-economic solution to a technical problem is a pretty crap-tastic way to get around the issue.

-Rick

Re:Not necessary?

[Fatal67]

The argument has been that the amount users pay doesn't cover the new consumption levels of some users.

The ISP's originally tried to make the argument that content providers should pay them, but that went over like a lead balloon and started the net neutrality debate. The ISP's at the time said someone had to pay for it, and they wanted it to be the companies, not the end users. You can argue whether you believe that statement or not, but they did say it.

Since they, the ISP's, couldn't get the content to pay for the bandwidth they used, they switched to blocking / throttling what they consider abusive traffic. Again, you can argue whether it's abusive or not, but it's what they stated.

Flash forward to today. The FCC is investigating the throttling and it looks like they may make some kind of ruling that would negatively impact the ability of ISP's to manage traffic on their network.

There are 2 ends to every connection, but only one end is paying. The content won't pay so now a way must be found to have the user pay. If, in the process of doing so, it also negatively impacts peer 2 peer usage, you won't see the ISP complaining.

The cable companies are also addressing the functionality of p2p with BT and other companies. So it sounds like a multi-pronged approach.

And to your last note, the infrastructure at places like Comcast and Time Warner are in a constant state of upgrade. I know that today the comcast network moves about 600G per second at peak. Average customer consumption has grown by 38% a year for the last 5 years. Close enough to say that every 2 years they must completely double their infrastructure.

Even if they added no no customers this year, they would still have to increase capacity by 38% for next year, just to serve the customers they have.

I suppose the right way to do it, would have been to raise your internet charges 38% each year, but they didn't. In fact, prices have gone down over that same period of time.

Don't confuse not upgrading their infrastructure with not being able to upgrade the infrastructure in line with demand growth. Where possible, they do. But when you are already at the max capacity on your HFC plant, there isn't much you can do until newer tech is available, ie DOCSIS 3.0.

Re:Not necessary?

[VGPowerlord]

There are 2 ends to every connection, but only one end is paying. The content won't pay so now a way must be found to have the user pay. If, in the process of doing so, it also negatively impacts peer 2 peer usage, you won't see the ISP complaining.

Except that the other end does pay. Content providers pay their ISPs for bandwidth. ISPs have peering agreements with other ISPs where either one end pays the other or neither pay. This happens until they reach your ISP, whom you are paying.

In other words, there are payments or agreements to exchange traffic from one end of any given transmission to the other.

I also hate to burst your bubble, but as traffic increases on the consumer side, traffic increases across all networks on the Internet. Even business networks, like Cogent, may route consumer to consumer traffic.

Why, then, do the consumer-facing telecom companies think they deserve special treatment?

Re:Not necessary?

[Fatal67]

When it's customer to customer, both ends are paying.

If you are able to peer with the AT&T, Sprint's and level 3s, you would be accurate.

But the current state is that these large content companies buy their traffic from a company such as level 3.

Since level 3 won't peer with me, I have to pay them 20 bucks per meg (95th percentile) for that traffic. Why should I have to pay in order to get that you tube traffic to you? What if I decide I will not pay for that traffic any more? Shouldn't the content provider then be the one to blame?

You no longer are able to reach that site, but it's not the ISP's fault they refuse to pay for content. The content providers are charged cheaper rates because they know they will make up for it on the other end.

And you bring up my next point, thanks. If they want to regulate true network neutrality, make it so that networks HAVE to peer and no more of the old boys network. If I have traffic of a certain level with your network, you should HAVE to peer with me in mutually acceptable locations.

As it is, level 3 can sell transit to my network, cheaper than i can, because they are getting paid on both ends.

You don't see something wrong with that? Personally, I find the fact that the ISP and the content companies are taking all of the heat in the NN debate a little bit disconcerting. Especially when it's the transit providers sitting in the middle double dipping causing a lot of the issues.

And that's how ISP X subsidizes youtube etc. They (youtube)are charged a fraction of the cost of normal transit because the transit provider charges the other ends 20 bucks a meg.

SO, a question. If Comcast were to say, "Screw that, we arent paying for Youtube traffic anymore at 20 bucks a meg", and you could no longer reach youtube through comcast, who would you blame?

Re:Not necessary?

[Chosen Reject]

There are 2 ends to every connection, but only one end is paying. The content won't pay so now a way must be found to have the user pay.

What are you talking about? If something is on the Internet, it got their by having a connection. If I am seeing that something on my end, I'm doing so because I paid for my end of the connection. There are two ends, and both ends are paying. I pay for my end, and Google, Slashdot, Newegg, dilbert.com, weather.com, Youtube, newsoftheweird.com, etc also pay for their connection. So where do get the idea that content isn't paying for their end?

Since they, the ISP's, couldn't get the content to pay for the bandwidth they used[1], they switched to blocking / throttling what they consider abusive traffic[2]. Again, you can argue whether it's abusive or not, but it's what they stated.[3]

[1]The content is paying for their connection.
[2]How do you abuse unlimited? If that's what they advertised, then you should get it. Too bad for the ISPs for advertising what they couldn't deliver. It doesn't matter that they didn't expect people to use it, it's irrelevant that their actual contract has vague wording that says they don't offer unlimited service, they advertised it, they should deliver it, otherwise they are being fraudulent and should be taken to court.
[3]And they're lying. You cannot abuse unlimited, so they're lying, unless they don't offer unlimited, in which case, their advertisements are deceptive. In either case, they've lost all trust and no one should care what they say.

Re:Not necessary?

[Fatal67]

Please show me where on the Comcast page it says unlimited bandwidth usage, I think I'm missing it.

The content is paying for their usage on their transit provider. I am also paying that transit provider for that same content. So every meg you tube sends me not only costs me what the capacity and transport charges are, but also 20 bucks a meg.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that if Youtube pays level3 for transit it entitles them to free access on my network though. Add in the fact that I also have to pay for that transit and a strong case can be made for me to shut them off, completely. If they want to connect directly to me, for free even, I save a lot of money.

If I buy the house next door to yours, do I get free access to yours too?

Re:Not necessary?

[Chosen Reject]

FWIW, I don't have Comcast, but I have seen their advertisements that proclaim unlimited usage. Maybe they don't do that anymore, but they did, and even when they were advertising it, they weren't delivering it. If you advertise something but don't offer it then you're being deceptive. Like I said, it doesn't matter that their actual contract doesn't allow for unlimited usage, their advertisements say they do. So either they do offer it or they don't. Seeing as how we are even having this discussion, we know they don't, so why were/are they advertising it as such in the first place. We've all seen the ads so you show me where they actually offer it. If you can find it, you win the Internet, otherwise, they're liars and should be taken to court.

As for content paying, you must not have any idea how these networks work. Youtube has some provider whom they pay. I have a provider whom I pay, I think it is safe to say that Youtube does not have the same provider that I have, so let's pretend Level 3 links my provider and youtube's provider. In which case, Youtube's provider pays Level 3 and my provider pays Level 3. So once again, all connections have someone who is paying. Where are you getting this idea that content isn't paying for a connection to the Internet?

Re:Not necessary?

[Fatal67]

I am the peering coordinator and transit purchaser for my network. I know exactly how it works.

They are paying their provider, but their provider is not paying me. Them paying level 3 means nothing to me. Then paying level3 gets them access to level 3 and whoever else level 3 can con in to paying for that traffic. Because level 3 knows that everyone else has to pay for the youtube content, they can give youtube very reduced rates.

So where I have to pay 20 bucks a meg for youtube, youtube might be paying 5 bucks a meg. That is me subsidizing their bandwidth costs.

I still have to pay for that content. So my customer pays, I pay, you tube pays, but level 3 just sits back and makes bank.

Even if I word it like you that they are paying for a connection to the Internet, my network is not the Internet. My network is a private network owned by a public company. The network was built to provide MY services. They did not pay for a connection to my network. Unless you think it's perfectly acceptable for me to pay someone else for the work you do every week, I'm not sure how you think this is not a broken business model.

In the days before content and isp's had their own nationwide networks, transit providers were justified in their business model. But for me and youtube to both pay level 3 to interconnect us when we are sitting 5 rows apart in an Equinix facility makes no sense. But youtube won't buy directly from me. Level 3 can sell capacity on my network cheaper than I can because they have multiple people paying them on both ends. Even if they gave youtube their traffic free, everyone else still has to pay the 20 bucks a meg and Level3 makes their money.

I am sure we are in agreement on this and it's just my wording that is causing the issues, and I apologize for that. But the Internet business model in the US is busted and it needs to change. No amount of NN regulation is going to change that.

When a third party can sell my resources cheaper than I can sell them, the business model is busted.

Oh, and I haven't seen an "unlimited internet" ad in a couple years, but I don't really look for them. This new business model with a bandwidth cap and overage charges would actually allow them to go back towards being unlimited. It just wouldn't be all you can eat. It will now be, take all you want, pay for what you take. As it should be.

You must believe that this is ok if you are defending transit sellers that sell traffic by the meg. Why do you feel that it is ok for them to have a business model that charges on both ends, but noone else? Not only do they charge both ends, they charge by the bit.

My network is a transit network also. Both ends should pay or one end will end up paying the cost of both parties. And that's where usage caps and metered billing comes in.

Re:Not necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Phew I dont argue with people who make sweeping generalizations based on peoples reading habits. that was a close one all round.

Re:Not necessary?

[TehZorroness]

(this comment has nothing to do with this law in particular. It's just my speculation on our legal system.) Adding useless laws DOES have an effect. We can choose between implementing the entirety of our laws in as few words as possible, or we can try to throw in as many clauses as possible. One choice leaves you with a legal implementation that is light-weight, easy to understand, and easy to interpret - perhaps making the law a little bit more understandable to the lay-person and killing off a few lawyers in the process (always a good thing). The opposite is to do what we do here in the US. Our laws are loaded with clause after clause of confusing lawyer-speak. These laws tend to be harder to interpret in a consistent way and I feel that this is one of the reasons why we are such a litigious nation. With so many laws worded with the complexity that they are, tweaks tend to be needed much more often, and these tweaks are usually guided by the special interest lobbyists. If we just took a step back and tried to optimize the implementation of our laws, I'm sure our courts would be run much more efficiently, and congress would actually have time to get important things done. During this process, we could also take the time to re-evaluate the importance of certain laws, such as the outlawing of certain drugs, gay marriage, non-commercial copyright infringement, and whatever else we manage to dig up. At the same time, we could attempt to straighten out certain things, like the electoral college.

Re:Not necessary?

[uniquename72]

Your local ISP had to change their business model to meet the new regulations and you get to pay for it. You mean the new regulations that keep everything the same as it already is? Hmmm...why would they need a new business model for that, again?

But mostly your post fails because it pretends that this is a capitalist system. In fact, my "local ISP" is a major telecom monopoly, which is heavily subsidized with my tax dollars in order to provide me with service that is the laughingstock of the world.

Re:Not necessary?

[RingDev]

So you're upset that you have to pay $20 per volue and that youtube only has to pay $5 per the same volume and you'd rather purchase directly from youtube for the low cost of a $1.4 billion dollar direct line piped from their switch in their server room to your switch?

-Rick

why do the bad guys always come up with such names

[CDMA_Demo]

Whats wrong with "Net Equality"? Oh, i know....

The good news is...

[Anonymous Coward]

That Google are apparently now stepping up a gear in their fight against these ridiculous NN issues.

Re:The good news is...

[19thNervousBreakdown]

GNAA post.

Re:The good news is...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Which got modded Informative? WTF?

Motivation not what people are thinking?

[morgan_greywolf]

John Conyers is an African American and he has represented a district in Michigan that is predominantly African American for nearly 40 years. He's probably thinking more along the lines of race than anything else.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[CDMA_Demo]

John Conyers is an African American and he has represented a district in Michigan that is predominantly African American for nearly 40 years. He's probably thinking more along the lines of race than anything else. That explains why he's against tubectomy.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[dave1791]

Okay, lay it out for me because no matter how hard I try to wrap my mind around it, I can't seem to see how in the world this should be a racial issue. Nor do I see why it should affect my opinion of net neutrality even if he were conflates corporatism with white skin.

I don't care if he want's net neutrality because a puppet named banjo told him so. Net Neutrality is a good thing.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[Serenissima]

Why would being black give him any insight on equality and..... oh, right...

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm guessing you're white. (I am too). Unlike me, most white people almost never think about race. For most black people, even (or maybe especially) those in the middle class, race is always on their mind.

Having lived with an African American roommate really changed my perceptions about race. I used to think that race is not a big issue anymore -- not so for the vast majority of those affected by racial discrimination, which still plays a very big role in society today.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[Wavebreak]

Gentlemen, I present to you a modern day racist.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[cornjones]

most white people almost never think about race. For most black people, even (or maybe especially) those in the middle class, race is always on their mind. I know, i get yelled at this everytime i bring it up but if it isn't on the mind of most white people and it is always on the mind of most black people, doesn't that infer that racial discrimination may be more because it is so forefront in the minds of the black community?

holey run on batman....

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[thetoadwarrior]

Having lived with an African American roommate really changed my perceptions about race. I used to think that race is not a big issue anymore -- not so for the vast majority of those affected by racial discrimination, which still plays a very big role in society today. And and racism will always be around as long as they keep thinking in terms of race.

Most modern race problems stem from the so called oppressed. It's like anything else, if you expect the worst then you'll get it and those that always think positive generally get positive outcomes.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[bsDaemon]

I think he is hinging his comment around the term "nondiscriminatory" in the summery. One could interpret that, if it is indeed a word used by the Congressman, as insinuating this legislation is intended to make it illegal to provide lower-quality service to minority-heavy areas.

That is not what "net neutrality" is about, but since people in Congress rarely have a clue about these things, then it might be easy for them to misinterpret the crux of the argument -- especially since Slashdotter types seem to like to make net neutrality sound like a "civil rights" argument.

Thus, a bill is being introduced making it illegal to offer degraded service to the 'hood, 'cause of civil rights... all that will probably mean is that they'll degrade service to the burbs, call it fair and tell customers to stufu because "its the law now, we have to do this."

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[dreamchaser]

That makes a little more sense than what I got from your original post. I was careful not to call you a racist because I wasn't sure what your angle was.

I do have to say that I have many black friends (I refuse to use terms PC like African Amercian, Italian American, etc...we're all Americians)who do NOT reflect what you're saying. They are all middle class living in suburbia and seem to be as color blind as I am.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[morgan_greywolf]

They are all middle class living in suburbia and seem to be as color blind as I am.

Has it occurred to you that they might act differently around you because you're white? Amongst my (mostly middle-class) black friends I may as well be black due to a variety of reasons; some of it may be due to the fact that I'm a religious minority and share some of their same attitudes towards oppression.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[morgan_greywolf]

racial discrimination may be more because it is so forefront in the minds of the black community?

Close. Try your same logic inversely and you'll get the real picture. Discrimination is mostly a lot less overt, but it's still there and much of it is because whites don't think about race much and so they discriminate without realizing they are discriminating.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[morgan_greywolf]

Exactly how is this offtopic? I made a statement about the prominent and honorable Rep. John Conyers and his possible political motives for proposing the new Net Neutrality bill and dave1791 wanted to know why I thought that way so I explained it.

Completely on-topic. Stupid mods must be on crack again.

Re:Motivation not what people are thinking?

[dreamchaser]

I've been called a 'sand nigger' because I am half Lebanese and look it aside from gray eyes. I know what prejudice is and what it feels like. No, that's not it. My anecdotal sample size is no better than anyone else's though. I was not discounting what you said. I was just expressing a somewhat different experience.

I do know some middle class blacks who see everything through the prism of race, but they are a minority (seriously no pun intended, I caught the possible pun during Preview) compared to the ones I know who do not.

The New York Times?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

The legislation, introduced Thursday, earned praised from ...

... with Comcast saying it has slowed some customer access to the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol during times of network congestion, they say.

Competition is happened ...

That's just from a quick read-through. This is the New York Times?

Re:The New York Times?

[Anonymous Coward]

Competition is happened ...
What you say?
Somebody set us up the FIOS.

Competition

[77Punker]

I don't know about their dream world, but I live in a metropolitan area with 1.1 million people. When I got broadband 8 years ago, Road Runner was the only option.
There's DSL now, but it costs the same price for much lower speed. I'd like to have options, and I'm moving across the country to Tempe soon. Hopefully things are better there.

Re:Competition

[X-bubblehead]

It is unlikely that things will be better where you are going. Most local governments provide a monopoly to a single cable company...you can get DSL but, if you want cable, you're likely stuck with whatever company is currently in the good graces of your town council.

Re:Competition

[MBGMorden]

When I got broadband 8 years ago, Road Runner was the only option.
There's DSL now, but it costs the same price for much lower speed. I'd like to have options, That situation is actually MUCH better than many, many people in the country. I have slow, expensive DSL at my house. My choices are to use that and accept whatever they decide (which thankfully, they've not imposed bandwidth caps or any throttling yet, but the reliability of the connection can be spotty sometimes), or if I don't like that I'm SOL. Even if I went back to dial-up the only company with a local access number to me is the same company that I get DSL from.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh that sounds awful, and so backward. Here in Europe there is a whole smorgsborg of cable and DSL options available to every citizen, you simply choose the one which provides the best match to your requirements and suits your price point and away you go. Must just be one of the many benefits thats comes from living in a modern and educated society I suppose.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

We're plenty modern and educated across the pond here. We've just swapped "We the People" with "We the Corporate entity".

If it doesn't spell record breaking profits for the top 2%, it never hits the lawbooks.

Comcast and Rogers....

[NoobHunter]

WEe're currently experiencing the same issues up here in Canada. You guys have Comcast, we have Rogers and Bell. Also, I have to argue that Net Neutrality would hamper ISPs....if anything, it would promote MORE freedom do to whatever it is you do on the Net without having to worry about how much money is needed to guarantee that people can actually reliably access your website. In the US, the Gov't is by the people, for the people and of the people....who the hell in the US from the people want to give Telecorps more power? We, in Canada, are dealing with the same shite... http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2463/125/

Re:Comcast and Rogers....

[porcupine8]

At least the argument that competition and free market will keep companies from abusing non-neutrality makes some kind of sense in Canada. I was checking out providers in Montreal recently, and it looks like you actually *gasp* get a choice of who to get broadband from! If one company is slowing things down, you might actually be able to get comparable service from another company! In the U.S. you are lucky if you have one cable provider AND one broadband provider in your area. I live in a neighborhood with TWO cable providers - but not even the entire city gets that, only a little sliver. I've never seen anywhere else with two cable choices.

Re:Comcast and Rogers....

[porcupine8]

Sorry, that should say "one cable provider AND one DSL provider," not "broadband."

Re:Comcast and Rogers....

[compro01]

yeah. all the ILECs (bell, telus, sasktel, and whoever else) are required to lease out lines at a fixed cost. very nice for competition (i run out of fingers counting all the companies that i could get service from), though bell is/was screwing with throttling other provides.

Re:Comcast and Rogers....

[Phisbut]

I was checking out providers in Montreal recently, and it looks like you actually *gasp* get a choice of who to get broadband from! If one company is slowing things down, you might actually be able to get comparable service from another company!

Yeah, it's nice that you got that impression, but that's not how it goes... We do indeed have a choice of multiple DSL providers, but they all buy their bandwidth wholesale from Bell, and Bell controls the infrastructure. So when Bell decides they throttle, all the competitors are screwed.

Re:Comcast and Rogers....

[porcupine8]

Aaaahhhh, I see. So it's just an illusion of choice when it comes to that kind of thing. My husband is moving to Montreal for a year, and so I've been trying to figure out how on earth we'll stay in communication without paying international roaming on his cel phone.

Parse these lies

[PopeRatzo]

The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks, some Republicans said during a hearing this week

One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.

And I guess they're being rewarded richly enough by their corporate masters that they are able to say things like "hamper investment in broadband networks".

It's just like when the GOP say that "additional regulations will stop businesses from growing or adding jobs". The periods in our history when we had the most stringent regulations (and the highest taxes) also happened to be periods of greatest economic and job growth, as well as the strongest and most wealthy middle class.

We have to face that the Republicans, and their "small government Conservativism" have been nothing but a mouthpiece for greedy corporatists who want to make a fast buck at the expense of the rest of us and at the expense of America's well-being.

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume]

Yes, the Carter era was a bonanza compared to the Reagan-Bush I years (things were pretty good under Clinton, but his economic policies were closer to Reagan than, say, Kennedy or Johnson).

It's a ridiculous simplification to attribute the presence or lack of economic success to the man in office at the time, because there are policies that take many years to take effect or unwind, but the idea that taxing wealthy people at 90% is smart is just silly. Wealthy people pay ~25% taxes on their income at the moment, that could easily go north of 35% without really hurting anything, but there is a good debate somewhere near 50%.

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Why is it whenever I hear, "Republicans argue...", I immediately think, "Liars. Which corrupt industry are you shilling for now?"

Oh, that's right. I think that because that's all America's been subjected to for the last 7 years.

Buckley and Reagan are really dead.

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Your So Wrong.

First time poster, long term reader.

"The periods in our history when we had the most stringent regulations (and the highest taxes) also happened to be periods of greatest economic and job growth, as well as the strongest and most wealthy middle class."

Its well noted that reducing taxes on those that actually pay the bills in your country increases the amount of tax that they pay, i.e people stop running from the tax man and just start paying it because its less than the risk of getting caught.

People who earn under 100k a year pay a disproportionate amount of tax compared to the services they use. Most of your countries tax spending is footed by the rich. And why should they subsidize your lifestyle? Why don't you go to graduate school? Or develop an innovation?

Regulations only serve to raise prices. Increasing taxes or costs of running just either

A: Forces companies to increase prices to mitigate losses, driving up the price of the commodity and increasing costs to consumers

or

B: Forces companies to leave that sector of business reducingc competition, decreasing stakeholders in the sector and allowing higher market prices.

Do not confuse Deregulation with Giving a Governement Ordered Monopoly. Deregulation reduces overhead on ALL companies in a sector, otherwise its not really deregulation, its just being a dirty politician. Startups get taxed on profits just like middle and upper size companies.

"...hamper investment in broadband networks..."

Who is going to pay for consumer level data networks? If a company makes an investment, and thats precisely what infrastructure is, then that company has to make a profit on that investment, they are legally obliged to. Or the government can build it, and push your defecit up even more. Pick one.

But honestly. Above all. Why would you work harder, earn more money, if you were being taxed hardcore?

In your great depression, your total taxes added up to ninety four percent.

NINETY FOUR PERCENT.

NINE FOUR.

Plus, protectionist stratagies i.e the Smoot Tariff BS, only ever destroyed your economy, and allowed the soviets to become the big grain producer.

Taxes do not equal a better middle class. How can taxes equal more wealth? That just doesnt logically make sense, at all, ever. Your problem, just like ours, and everyone else's, is inflation.

The reason your middle class is being wasted is because you've eroded the worth of your dollar to one percent of its value from the 20th century. The rich have more equity and a higher cash flow, so thus can better make use of the liquidity available from the central banks. You can't print money at increasing percentages year on year and not expect a consequence.

I have never understood people's belief that politicians, who have no economic training, can actually solve economic issues. There no better than you or me. The majority dont objectively decide wether what is fed to them is the real deal or not. They are POPULISTS. Populists goals are to remain popular, that is all.

Don't preach understanding of basic economics without reading anything. Hating against companies achieves nothing. It's sad that a twenty-one year old psych nurse from Australia knows more about economics and YOUR history than you.

Re:Parse these lies

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

One would think that after a while it would get to be a chore to have to lie day after day to millions of people, but I guess the payback for "some Republicans" is great enough that their willing to step up to the challenge.

I think you are right about the majority of Republicans. They've just been bought. However, some actually do believe that stuff. It is typical Republican mantra to say "Government bad. Business good." "All regulation bad. All deregulation good." "The free market solves all ills." So I can see that there might actually be a few Republicans who honestly believe that the free market is solving this problem, but I do think that most of the Republican opposition is simply because the big providers paid them enough to oppose it.

Re:Parse these lies

[MasterPuppeteer]

Let's not forget that Billary got NAFTA passed for their corporate masters so they could move all the jobs out of the country to India. Wow! When did they move the Indian peninsula to North America? Seriously, who the f*** modded this insightful with a gem like that?

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wealthy people pay ~25% taxes on their income at the moment"

So, you consider $32,000 a year wealthy?

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=164272,00.html

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

It is typical Republican mantra to say "Government bad. Business good." "All regulation bad. All deregulation good." "The free market solves all ills."

Straw man arguments are lies.

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume]

Hi, welcome to thinking about taxes. People making $32,000 a year have a nominal marginal tax rate of about 25%. Rich people have an effective tax rate of about 25%.

Until understand the difference, don't bother talking about taxes publicly.

Effective tax rates by household income:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

Re:Parse these lies

[rukkyg]

In the '90s, Clinton deregulated several industries. Among them: commercial power, media, and investment banking.

Current situation in commercial power: deregulated markets are seeing huge increases in rates; there is little-to-no new-plant build, the infrastructure is crumbling, and brown-outs all over the country are likely to be necessary within a decade unless something changes.

Current situation in media: there are 3 media companies, owned by even larger companies, that provide something like 85% of all media in the United States. They focus on profit and entertainment over truth and Real News. They peddle non-issues like Wright and Fake News like WomanWithHalfGallonSilliconBoob stories. Faux News is awful, but CNN and MSNBC aren't much better. ABC is owned by Disney. NBC is owned by GE. CBS is owned by Viacom. About 40% of Americans still think that Saddam Hussein had something to do with Al Quaeda. And some ridiculously high number believe God created the planet and the universe and everything on it 6000 years ago.

Current situation in investment banking: investment bankers invested in sub-prime high-risk mortgages. They used their investments as a way to boost their image to stockholders. The sudden drop in housing values had one firm almost going under, saved by the Fed, and others talking about the apocalypse coming. CEOs of these companies are walking away with millions while thousands of Americans that were sold a dream of low mortgage payments (they're to blame too, but they're the ignorant ones) are losing their homes, and it's dragging down the whole economy.

Tell me again, how is it that deregulation helps?

Re:Parse these lies

[remmelt]

> Why don't you go to graduate school? Or develop an innovation?

Because someone has to mow the lawns of the rich. Someone has to paint their fences, pick up their trash, sell them services, assemble household appliances, etc. The economy is not about the rich against the losers who should have gotten an education.

Your point is so completely besides reality that it hurts.

Re:Parse these lies

[Danse]

Exactly. Why is it whenever I hear, "Republicans argue...", I immediately think, "Liars. Which corrupt industry are you shilling for now?" I tend to think that regardless of whether it's a republican or democrat doing the arguing. They may be in the pocket of different industries, but that's about the only difference.

Re:Parse these lies

[NotBornYesterday]

Regulations only serve to raise prices. Increasing taxes or costs of running just either Overly simplistic. Regulations are also about restricting predatory practices. This debate is not over whether prices are raised or profit made. The debate is over the power of ISPs to discriminate against certain providers of information and services. From here

"It does so by outlawing discriminatory fees for providing content, applications, or services over the 'Net. Internet providers also have to interact fully with the networks of their competitors and provide equal access to all users and any devices they wish to put on the network. Network providers would be allowed to provide favored service to specific types of data but, if they do, they have to provide that same favoritism to anybody transmitting the data, and couldn't charge for it."

Re:Parse these lies

[Jaysyn]

It's sad that a twenty-one year old psych nurse from Australia knows more about economics and YOUR history than you. Oh boy, another 20-something that has all of the answers. Don't be sad, I was right with you 10 years or so ago.

Re:Parse these lies

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

It's a ridiculous simplification to attribute the presence or lack of economic success to the man in office at the time, because there are policies that take many years to take effect or unwind

This reminds me of something I saw on a forum back in 2002-ish when the US was having some economic troubles. They said that the economic policies of an administration take about five years to have any real effect, so this was clearly Bill Clinton's fault. I remembered that when I saw the credit crunch start to hit. That was in mid-2007, so it was clearly the fault of whoever was in office in mid-2002. Now who was that?

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume]

Well, you haven't established that it is indeed the case that economic policies take 5 years to take effect. You've just stated that you heard someone say it once.

To the extent that the credit crunch is an after effect of the extreme low interest rates that were a response to the dot com crash, the problem is that Greenspan didn't have a crystal ball and only managed the situation very well rather than perfectly.

The sub prime portion of the situation was exacerbated by law changes going to back to Clinton, there was a law passed that was designed to increase home ownership. That got coupled with poor regulation and dishonest dealing during the Bush administration(note, I'm talking about dishonest mortgage brokers here) to make the situation worse than it needed to be.

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

I can remember eating weetbix for dinner 3-4 nights a week as a kid.

We had spaghetti. Alot.

We had fleas. And cockroaches.

I packed shelves for Coles.

I worked in a butchers shop.

I lived on twenty dollars a week.

I cleaned human excrement.

I get assualted by psychotic, amphetamine taking antisocial idiots, at work.

Im part way through my first degree, and going to my second.

I think I've done my dues of the work people don't want to do. I'll continue to do it until I've got the job I want.

And no one has to mow the lawns of the rich, its that persons choice. Why don't they open a small business in landscaping? Mow lawns for themselves?

Except, in Australia, the tax on small business' gross profits is about 60%.

Re:Parse these lies

[ptbarnett]

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

Thanks for posting this. I had gathered various parts of this data from different sources, but this sums it up succinctly. I especially like the table that breaks down the shares of federal tax liabilities.

Re:Parse these lies

[SydShamino]

Most of your countries tax spending is footed by the rich. And why should they subsidize your lifestyle? The rich depend on public-school-educated police officers to keep them safe at home.
The rich depend on public-school-educated employees to make them money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated workers to build the products they buy with their money.
The rich depend on public-school-educated professionals to fill their prescriptions.
The rich depend on public-financed road networks to move their products.
The rich depend on public-financed communication networks (like the subsidized phone system and the government-funded internet) to enable their businesses.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their business interests overseas.
The rich depend on public-financed military to protect their country from invasion.
The rich depend on public-financed social, medical, and economic safety nets to prevent the type of discontent among the poor that create revolution.

The poor depend on many of the above to survive, but, in absence of those things, the poor who have nothing to lose would revolt and restructure their society to provide them. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things very bad for the poor for a time, then make things better after the revolution. Eliminating the safety nets and social programs would make things better for the rich for a time, then make things much, much worse after the revolution.

The rich have gotten far more out of the system than the poor, and they have far more to lose if the system breaks down. It is only and truly fair that they pay their fair share to fund it. That fair share, proportionally, is much larger percentage of their income.

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand that, as I pointed out, the rich are actually footing the majority of the bill for these "public-financed" constructs?

I think it was above 100k a year people pay above 70% of tax. If you eliminated those people, then, what would you do with 30% of the current reciept?

How would that provide for after your revolution?

Or are we going to a command economy?

Mr Guevera, you sir, have been called!

Re:Parse these lies

[smooth wombat]

As a rule, I don't respond to ACs, but some of your comments are so ridiculous, they demand a response.

Regulations only serve to raise prices.

In the grand scheme of things, maybe. Companies always whine about being regulated and how much it will cost them to implement the regulations but they don't need an excuse to raise prices. Comcast does it all the time since it has a monopoly in the areas it serves. No new regulations have been passed requiring them to do anything more than they already do.

As I have said in other postings regarding Comcast, they have raised my rates but have not provided any new channels or services. In fact, they have taken channels away without replacing them. As they have a monopoly, government regulations, in this particular case, would benefit the community through (hopefully) lower prices for the same services. It would force real competition on the market instead of government sponsored monopoly that now exists.

Some regulations, such as increased environmental protection, handicapped accessible buildings and such, might increase short-term costs but in the long run provide lower costs. However, since American companies are only concerned with short-term gains, your comment is correct. Funny how companies like Honda, Toyota, LG and others don't have a problem implementing regulations and still increase their profits year after year while not increasing prices more than inflation.

Increasing taxes or costs of running just either: Forces companies to increase prices to mitigate losses

Um, what losses? If a company has to spend $1 million to implement a regulation, it's not a loss to the company, it's a cost. Unless you're trying to claim that all costs are losses. By that logic, paying employees is a loss as is having to pay for electricity, office space, etc.

driving up the price of the commodity and increasing costs to consumers

See above. Companies will raise prices and pass along the cost of doing business regardless of regulations. Someone has to pay for that million dollar pay package for the newest CEO. You think they work for free? And who is going to pay them when they run the company into the ground and get a multi-million dollar severance package?

Besides, the majority of companies have a profit margin they want to achieve. If they have to raise prices to keep those margins, they will, regardless of regulations. One could use oil companies as an example. Most are looking at a 15% margin of profit. They could lower their rate to 10% and still make billions which would in turn slightly reduce the cost of gasoline at the pump but they want to keep their margins so they won't. Regulations have nothing to do with Exxon wanting to keep its 15% margins.

If a company makes an investment, and thats precisely what infrastructure is, then that company has to make a profit on that investment, they are legally obliged to.

Whaattt!!?? No company has to make a profit on an investment. They are taking a risk that they will make a profit. There is no guarantee nor is there any legal obligation to do so. If every time a company that made an investment that didn't pan out got sued because of this supposed legal obligation, no one would make any investments.

Or the government can build it, and push your defecit up even more. Pick one.

Considering how much taxpayer money was given to cable and phone companies in the form of tax breaks, tax credits, grants and other goodies over a decade ago to upgrade our nationwide infrastructure, the government has already built it. And yes, the deficit did go up and the companies were the only ones who have made out because all the supposed benefits of the government giving these companies a break has not come to fruition. The logic behind the breaks was to allow more people access to highspeed connections which would increase worker productivity and thus, increase

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Tisk, tisk another great lie is bitten and swallowed. This isn't a Republican / Democrat thing. Both are paid off by the same companies. Just they choose to embrace the issues slightly differently.

If you want to blame the Government for any of these problems you have no farther to look than at the ignorance of a population that believes they can pick the lesser of two evils and not get a devil to rule over you..

Re:Parse these lies

[Colonel Korn]

You make a lot of dramatically incorrect assertions, many of which are figures that are simply wrong, but let's focus just on this:

"Regulations only serve to raise prices."

The last major deregulation we had in the US was an energy deregulation that led to tripling of power costs in California and frequent blackouts due to massive collusion among energy suppliers. $20 billion was flat out stolen from Californians, but since the Texan energy companies that did the stealing were controlled by friends of Mr. Bush, the federal government refused to look into taking that $20 billion back. If California hadn't voted against Bush in the election, things might have been different, but things weren't different.

Funny question: have you heard of Enron?

Re:Parse these lies

[Gat0r30y]

Pretax and Aftertax - the numbers posted there are not even close to accurate - at least not for last year or this year. I payed taxes on my income both years, and net after federal before state tax was vastly different than stated in the table (my income happens to be one of the quintile marks). There is > 10% discrepancy between the stated tax % and what I had withheld. That's without including Social Security, or Medicare tax too.

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume]

Not matching you doesn't really mean that they are inaccurate. If you are right on the edge of a quintile, the rest of the quintile that you are in is going to be dragging you up or down(depending on which edge of the quintile you are on), so there could be a huge discrepancy, if the numbers within the quintile vary quite a lot. It would be pretty controversial if the numbers were intentionally distorted(they were published in December of 2007, so there probably is not a party issue).

And effective taxes are the percentage of you income that the government ends up keeping, so the net amount that you pay to federal is what matters, not the amount that is withheld. You stated the net amount along those lines so I'm not sure why you mention what you had withheld.

Does one of the tables in this document make more sense(rates are probably going to be higher for single people than for families, etc.)?

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/Appendix_wtoc.pdf

Re:Parse these lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, wealthy people pay the most taxes here in the US...

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/taxes-warren-buffett-and-paying-my-fair-share/

Only those who make 20-200K really pay taxes. After that it's loophole time.

Re:Parse these lies

[maxume]

People earning over $230,000 pay ~67% of all federal taxes. People earning less than that pay ~33% of all federal taxes:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml

Re:Parse these lies

[PopeRatzo]

We farmers have a saying: "You have to hitch up the strongest horses to pull the heaviest loads."

Of course the richest pay most of the taxes. They have most of the money.

Re:Parse these lies

[PopeRatzo]

Buckley and Reagan are really dead.

They were dead when they were alive.

Re:Parse these lies

[PopeRatzo]

Its well noted that reducing taxes on those that actually pay the bills in your country increases the amount of tax that they pay

"Well noted" by whom?

You seem to have a higher estimation of your knowledge of US history and economics that is deserved. In fact, your "knowledge" seems to have come from one of the many Regnery Press books that are meant to teach "economics" to right-wing fools.

Next time, find a book that has actual data in it.

Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help

[jonwil]

Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help. The lawyers for the big telcos/cable companies will spend the next decade in courtrooms coast to coast trying to argue for their interpretation of what "provide service in a non-discriminatory manner" actually means.

Re:Even if this passes, it wont necessarily help

[BooRolla]

I'm not sure how excited they'll be with fighting Google et al when that comes up. Besides, not doing the right thing because some people will drag their feet doesn't mean you shouldn't do the right thing. Ask the EU about MS for details.

Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na

[ShieldW0lf]

They're trying to get it passed by a bunch of conservatives. "Net Equality" reminds them of communism and sharing, which they don't like. "Net Neutrality" on the other hand, reminds them of Swiss bankers, which every rich conservative likes. Neutrality is a much easier sell than equality.

Screw anti-trust...

[llamalad]

Deny them common carrier status.

Re:Screw anti-trust...

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

As has been pointed out countless times, they don't have common carrier status.

Re:Screw anti-trust...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the eleventy-billionth time, ISPs do NOT have common carrier status, nor do they want to be, specifically because if they were a common carrier, they wouldn't be allowed to pull stunts like this.

They'd rather pass the buck to their customers. They do this in their terms of service where you agree that you are liable for your actions. It's why many ISPs respond to "John Doe" subpoenas. They don't want to be held liable. Under a common carrier system, they wouldn't be held liable no matter what you did.

Re:Screw anti-trust...

[Danse]

For the eleventy-billionth time, ISPs do NOT have common carrier status, nor do they want to be, specifically because if they were a common carrier, they wouldn't be allowed to pull stunts like this. It does illustrate one of the major problems with this subject. Most people have absolutely no clue about any of it. Even a lot of Slashdotters don't know the facts, so that would mean that the average person out there wouldn't have much chance at all. It's not like this stuff shows up in the newspaper or on TV.

A variant on "If you've done nothing wrong..."

[erroneus]

"If you aren't [planning on] doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear from this net neutrality law."

But ultimately the problem as I see it is that the telecoms don't think it's wrong to do what they have been doing and/or what they plan to do... especially since there is no law that identifies it as such.

Re:A variant on "If you've done nothing wrong..."

[esocid]

They probably don't think what they're doing is wrong, because they are so disillusioned it doesn't sink in. I think a more fitting quote would be:
"If you aren't [planning on] doing anything wrong to millions of paying customers, contractually obligated to a service that you aren't providing, then you have nothing to fear from this net neutrality law."

Re:A variant on "If you've done nothing wrong..."

[NerdyLove]

Do you really think the telecoms care about whether something is ethical or not? They're out to make money and they are willing to screw the consumer to do it.

Hamper investment in broadband - hah!

[baffled]

The internet is still growing by leaps and bounds. More like net neutrality could hamper investment in your stock portfolios..

competitive my ass..

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Competition is supposed to bring down the prices of products.. yet all I have seen in the last 6 months is 3 rate hikes (verizon fios)... and I have plenty of options..... oh wait, no I don't.. I have Cable (Comcast can go F themselves into oblivion so thats not an option), and Fios (if I was to include TV then I also have DTV or Dish as an option)..

A duopoly is not competitive, and I have no options for DSL or any other landline based solution other then dialup. Sat internet is not an option, too much latency

Re:competitive my ass..

[esocid]

I have no idea in what world those people live who claim that the

broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks

. Last time I checked, like everyone else, I found out that I only had one (and if you're lucky 2 or 3) provider(s) in the area. The fact that we come out as 15/30 in the 2008 ITIF rankings should say something since costs increase and choices decrease, and bandwidths have been creeping so slowly, whereas Japan has the highest average bandwidth and lowest cost per Mbps. I would just love to hear what excuse these "expert" congresscritters have to say about where this competition is. The ISPs are fat and happy and don't have to invest in their networks, that is where the anti-competitive behavior is coming from.

Who would've guessed

[Anonymous Coward]

But broadband providers... have argued that net neutrality legislation isn't necessary. ISPs against net neutrality legislation? Shocking, ain't it?

Rep.s lie again

[Jane Q. Public]

It might hamper THEIR investments, but if they did not invest, somebody else would. They are just being protectionist yet again. I am so tired of having to listen to their bull.

RIAA, MPAA...

[craagz]

..will want to get this law voted in so that all ISPs will have the ability to throttle P2P traffic through selective blocking of trackers.

Re:RIAA, MPAA...

[MBGMorden]

Wha? This law would actually PREVENT that, not encourage it. Selective blocking of trackers is treating some sites differently than others. That's a no-no under a net neutral mentality.

Worded less politely, net neutrality boils down to the customer saying to the ISP:

"I pay you for bandwidth. Nothing more. Shut the fuck up and let me spend that bandwidth how and where I please.".

I can't believe it's even an issue in people's minds. If Comcast built a huge toll road that lead to a dead end, nobody would drive on it and their stockholders would throw mad fits. It would be a blessing if the Google Sushi Bar opened next to the road serving up the best sushi in the state for low prices. People would actually pay to use their road now. You'd think they'd be happy, but no Comcast wants to charge the travelers AND charge the Google Sushi Bar every time someone wants to turn into their restaurant. Or, if they don't pay up, they'll still let people go there, but only 3 cars every hour. You're welcome to go to the brand new Comcast Sushi Bar across the street though.

That's pretty much the situation that we're looking at, and it needs to be stopped, by law if necessary (and I've heard enough rumblings from the telecoms to believe it is now necessary). Claiming it'll "hinder investment" is just asinine. Of course companies would build more networks if they could unfairly extort money from people. That doesn't make it right.

Re:RIAA, MPAA...

[craagz]

.. neutrally i.e.

Re:RIAA, MPAA...

[Anonymous Coward]

BS -- The cable (and high-speed DSL-ish wannabees) are trying to get video-on-demand (for pay) as the service, with anything else sort-of working, enough to keep customers complaining to recorded announcements for what doesn't work. Matters not if you are talking about VZN FIOS, Bell, ComCast, Cox, AT&T, whomever.

won't hinder investment in the least

[sloth jr]

That's just the biggest crock of shit ever. Customers will demand service that doesn't completely suck, and that's going to drive broadband investment more than anything else.

This will end like all anti-capitalist laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like any other regulation, it will mean fewer services to go around. When are people going to learn that people who are in business to service customers want more customers not fewer. The markets always take care of themselves. Tinkering with it will only make things worse.

Supporting Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we all need cell phones/internet connections...

My question to the /. wizards is this:

If I want to support Net Neutrality, which cell phone provider do I go with? Internet?

ATT? Hahah. Yeah. Sure.
Comcast. Nope. Possibly worse than ATT
Verizon?
Sprint?
T-mobile?
Virgin? Surely Ol' Richard likes NetNeut!?!

Does anyone know?

Huh?

[dreamchaser]

What does his race have to do with his position as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee?

From the TFA, which you apparantly didn't read:

'Conyers and Lofgren were cosponsors of a similar bill introduced in 2006, when Republicans held a majority in the House. With significant Republican opposition, the 2006 bill died, but Democrats were elected to the majority late that year.

"Americans have come to expect the Internet to be open to everyone," Conyers said in a statement. "The Internet was designed without centralized control, without gatekeepers for content and services. If we allow companies with monopoly or duopoly power to control how the Internet operates, network providers could have the power to choose what content is available."'

While Conyers has at times made efforts in Congress that reflect his consituency, he appears to be acting as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee should be acting. I am actually not a fan of his (I tend to be far more conservative than he), but your vaguely racist comment made me scratch my head and say 'Huh?'.

I'll reserve further judgement until I've had a chance to read the text of the bill.

Competitive market?

[rkhalloran]

For most markets, you have either cable or DSL. In large markets, you probably have both. In some VERY major markets (Bos-Wash metroplex, California, etc), you may have fiber-optic and cable.

Outside of that last group, you really don't have a choice of providers, so you're stuck with whatever crappy TOS they give you. Just look at the recent news about Comcast throttling P2P, and now talking about monthly traffic caps. Guess how long that would last if they actually *DID* have competition for customers?

Sadly, the prospects of this bill getting anywhere in the current whores-for-corporations Congress is about nil, but it probably looks good for Conyers' re-election campaign.

This is the first time i am happy that there is

[unity100]

a republican in u.s. congres. go REP !!!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[FatSean]

You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'.

Yeah, I've heard this story before. I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[JavaLord]

You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'.

It wasn't just 'shady banking practices' that led to the credit crunch, it was constant inflation in order to avoid recessions.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[DesScorp]

"You know, the ones repealed and/or not passed in the late 80's and 90's in order to help the economy grow...which then led to shady banking practices that begat our current 'credit crunch'."

Wow, put on the hipwaders. The bullshit is thick today.

Our current "credit crunch" had nothing to do with banking deregulation of the late 80's and early 90's. It has everything to do with three issues.

One, the subprime mess. That's the fault of people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford, and banks lending them money they couldn't pay back. But why were the banks lending them that money, then? Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess. And now these same politicians are promising to spend taxpayer funds to bail out these irresponsible people and banks, while people that played by the rules... the ones that only bought houses they knew they could afford, or when they couldn't, rented instead... well, your beloved regulators are about to stab those people in the back. The ones that played by the rules? Suckers and chumps, apparently, because they could have gone hog wild and let Uncle Sugar bail them out. THATS the fruits of your nanny regulation, not true free market economics.

The other two reasons are strictly because of monetary policy, not banking regulation. The Fed decided on too much liquidity, and the Bush Adminstration adopted a weak dollar policy, mainly because of complaints by people much like you that "our trade deficit is too high! Get the Chinese to buy more from US!". So Bush bought into that fraudulent thinking that if we made our domestic products cheaper via a weak dollar, foreign countries would come running to buy more of our products (never mind that in the US, throughout 400 years of our history, has had a trade deficit for 350+ of those years, and it hasn't retarded our economic growth. The trade deficit is a useless measure of overall economic health).

"I like the regulations, they are necessary for capitalism to work in the real world"

Ahh, the old bullshit that capitalism isn't "efficient" enough without government regulation.

The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[SirGeek]

One, the subprime mess. That's the fault of people buying houses they knew they couldn't afford, and banks lending them money they couldn't pay back. But why were the banks lending them that money, then? Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess. And now these same politicians are promising to spend taxpayer funds to bail out these irresponsible people and banks, while people that played by the rules... the ones that only bought houses they knew they could afford, or when they couldn't, rented instead... well, your beloved regulators are about to stab those people in the back. The ones that played by the rules? Suckers and chumps, apparently, because they could have gone hog wild and let Uncle Sugar bail them out. THATS the fruits of your nanny regulation, not true free market economics.

Go rent the movie Maxed Out and you'll get even MORE disgusted with the banks because the KNOW that these people can't pay the bills but they make most of their profits from them.

When they sue people Only $ 1 out of $ 3 is principle. The Other $ 2 are fees and charges.

It even mentions a new type of Credit Card that will go against your pension plan !

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[hunterx11]

The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets. There is no categorical necessity that we prevent any evil at all "in the real world", but that isn't some sort of normative argument that we shouldn't do so, either. Regulation that promotes social welfare may be a drag on the markets, but this is acceptable if human beings are deemed more valuable than the market.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[Manchot]

Because politicians decided that it wasn't fair that people with bad credit couldn't get home loans, so they created laws authorizing subprime mortgages, and indeed pressed banks to give these loans to "disadvantaged" borrowers. That's right, your beloved government regulations helped create this mess.

I think you should re-read what you just wrote. In order for the government to have authorized subprime loans, one must assume that they were previously unauthorized. In other words, something which was disallowed became allowed. That is an example of deregulation, not regulation.

And by the way, from an EE's perspective, just because markets are somewhat self-correcting and have feedback, it doesn't mean that they're ideal. The market is an extremely complex dynamical system, but even very simple control systems like an inverted pendulum can be over- or underdamped. It is completely unrealistic to assume that the market is optimal, and regulations are an attempt to fix that. I guess you could make the argument that any regulation could make the market worse, but that is really an argument of FUD.

Re:Like those pesky Banking Regulations!

[Anonymous Coward]

'The only thing capitalism needs to work "in the real world" is a seller that has something a buyer wants, and a buyer that has the means to pay for that product or service. Period. Regulation that does anything other than prevent fraud is nothing more than a drag on markets.'

Moron!

Are you serious?

[FatSean]

It's not the level of taxes, my criminal friend, it's the distribution of taxes.

Tax burden in the USA has shifted significantly from the rich to the middle class. Sure, the tax rates tell one story but loopholes and dodges let the rich guys avoid most of their responsibility.

Re:Are you serious?

[Woldscum]

Define rich. Why should I be penalized for going to school then busting my ass for all most 20 years now? WHAT IS RICH?

Re:Are you serious?

[maxume]

Depending on who you call rich, the rich pay between 67% and 85% of federal taxes:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml#1011535

Maybe they should pay more, but it is still quite accurate to say that the rich pay most of the taxes in this country.

Re:Are you serious?

[theelectron]

But that makes sense. Let's say we have a group of 6 people. One person makes $100,000/yr and 5 other people in the group make $10,000/yr and they all pay 10 percent of that for taxes. The 100k/yr person will pay $10k in taxes and the 5 other people will pay $5k in taxes combined. The 100k/yr person is paying about 67 percent of the taxes! Well, duh! Throw in tax tiers, and it skews it even more. Whether tax tiers are fair is a different argument. Keep in mind, the 100k/yr earner gets to take home 90k/yr and the others get to take home 9k/yr even though they pay less taxes. That is why low to middle class workers get up in arms when the 'rich' people complain about taxes.

Re:Are you serious?

[maxume]

I understand the math, even without your 6 person simplification.

Do notice how I didn't make any comment about how much the rich *should* be paying, I simply pointed out that 'most' is an accurate description of the percentage of the taxes they pay.

I'm fine with people arguing that high income earners should bear the vast majority of the tax burden, but I'd like to make the debate about what high income is, and what exactly constitutes a vast majority, and despite your comment, many people actually believe that the rich don't really pay very much taxes(whereas they, especially as a group, pay a higher percentage of taxes on their income and pay for a majority of government spending). If you look at the numbers, the higher your income, the higher your effective tax rate.

There is another discussion about wealth taxes rather than income taxes. I don't like wealth taxes. For starters, I'd like to become wealthy and a wealth tax is a major impediment to that. Another thing is that I don't think the government is very good at spending money. So the incredibly rich get to hang on to their money in my world of fair.

Re:Are you serious?

[Gat0r30y]

(whereas they, especially as a group, pay a higher percentage of taxes on their income and pay for a majority of government spending) Well, for 1) Capital gains is ~ 15% - I pay > 25% and I am far from the top quintile.
Additionally, the argument breaks down eventually because it is in the high income earners best interest to bear the vast majority of the tax burden. 1) They can generally afford it
2) It is most definitely in their best interest to maintain a healthy, mobile workforce in the country they live in - in order to maintain that workforce, there must be social safety nets, and the workforce needs to be educated.
Perhaps the tax burden is unduly hard on the rich, do you suggest further taxing the poor/middle class to balance the budget?

Re:Are you serious?

[theelectron]

I agree with most of what you say, I was expanding on what you said and addressing some anticipated arguments as well. But do notice how I also didn't make any comment about how much the rich *should* be paying. (Though I do have some different experiences with peoples perceptions of 'rich' people not paying taxes. What I see more often is 'poor' people being bitter, not because they think rich people don't pay taxes, but rather because the 'rich' people are complaining about taxes while still taking home orders of magnitude more than they are. Though I am sure there are many people don't believe 'rich' people pay taxes, I am also sure many people of all affluences don't pay taxes.)
As to your discussion on what constitutes 'rich' - I don't think you will get a fixed answer. Cost of living, buying power etc. varies so much by location and even time.

Re:Are you serious?

[maxume]

Where have I suggested that the rich should pay less taxes?

I'm only suggesting that it is fair to say that they pay most of the taxes.

Re:Are you serious?

[maxume]

Rich can be bounded a little bit. GDP/working population is ~$100,000. GDP/population is ~$43,000.

So in the U.S., there is approximately $43,000 of production per person, and approximately $100,000 of production per worker. Depending on how you feel about the distribution of resources, rich is probably more than one of those amounts(because there isn't enough production for someone to consume more than $43,000 without lowering consumption for someone else, and because there isn't enough production to pay someone more than $100,000 without paying someone else less).

Re:Are you serious?

[theelectron]

Well, my opinion is that 'rich' is very relative. Using those numbers: $43k/person would be considered pretty 'rich' in rural midwest areas, but $43k would be fairly average for metropolitan areas, and $100k might be pretty average in some coastal communities. Do you have some standard deviations for those numbers? That might go a bit further to defining 'rich' in a very general sense.

Re:Are you serious?

[maxume]

They are ratios of total national productivity to population. The idea is that economic productivity needs to match consumption in order to sustain a lifestyle(setting aside whether the economic activity is environmentally sustainable). If the U.S. was run in an entirely, evenly redistributive fashion, there would be $43k of resources to give to each person (assuming the redistribution did not impact productivity in either direction). If you only redistribute to people who are economically productive, there is $100,000 per person.

So the definition of rich is then "more than average", which is a probably a pretty good floor(i.e., someone with less than average isn't going to think they are rich, ever).

I'm not sure how a standard deviation would be (or even could be) derived for such a thing.

If you run the same numbers for total global productivity versus total global population, it is more like $11,000 per person, so the great majority of people in the U.S. are rich by global standards (pretty much everybody except for relatively low income households with several children).

Re:Are you serious?

[PopeRatzo]

It is fair that the rich pay the most taxes.

They have disproportionally benefited from the commonwealth.

Re:Are you serious?

[PopeRatzo]

$43k/person would be considered pretty 'rich' in rural midwest areas

There is no "rural midwest area" in America where 43k would be considered rich.

This is racism! NO! THIS IS SLASHDOT!!!

[Travoltus]

Seriously, though, morgan greywolf's response is it's not about race. Conyers just happens to be black ergo Conyers is always thinking about race. QED.

White people never think about race when they make their political decisions, and all that.

Just wait'll you read the bill, you'll see what morgan greywolf is talking about: it has "think of the black children" literally encoded in ROT-32 in the text.

comcast and world of warcraft

[mark_jabroni]

Occasionally WoW will start working poorly for certain players over a certain ISP, for example Comcast.

Since WoW is such a widely used app Comcast has generally been very good about working with Blizzard to resolve these problems.

You kind of wonder if this sort of "special support" would be illegal under the new law -- after all, Comcast is probably not providing all games developers with similar support.

Explain this, then

[Travoltus]

Show me one time in American history where conservatism (economic laissez-faire, in particular) has served us well.

We de-regulated banks and got the Great Depression - that is, that whole economic collapse thing from unstable banks long before your Smoot-Hawley boogeyman ever came along. Oh and how was that Soviet grain production going around the 1970s? Compared to socialist America, I mean.

Tell us, what ruin came of America from the New Deal? Oh noes, that preceded a nice long run of American prosperity. Which ironically ended with unregulated corporatism.

How's that de-regulation doing for the airlines and energy industries? Oh, my.
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/105023/Expect-a-Jolt-When-Opening-the-Electric-Bill

And what about those S&L's?

Oh yeah, we're doing great with de-regulation.

Okay now name me one successful first world country on the planet that uses laissez-faire economics. Show me one. Just one. I'm waiting.

Re:Explain this, then

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's not the level of taxes, my criminal friend, it's the distribution of taxes."

"Tax burden in the USA has shifted significantly from the rich to the middle class. Sure, the tax rates tell one story but loopholes and dodges let
the rich guys avoid most of their responsibility."

The rich still pay the majority of tax. And government reciepts go up, when they reduce the tax rates. Why should people be punished to earn more money? Were is the incentive in that? Flat tax rates work well, its fair, and treats everyone the same. You cant make people pay more tax because they are black or white or gay, but you can because they studied hard, applied themselves and worked? Maybe its just because I see people as individuals, that should be totally free from discrimination that I think that is unfair.

"Deregulated markets are seeing huge increases in rates; there is little-to-no new-plant build, the infrastructure is crumbling, and brown-outs all over the country are likely to be necessary within a decade unless something changes."

So what would increased regulation solve here? Would you force companies to create infrastructure and then tax the profits on an investment? Or do you want government owned and funded companies which add to the defecit? Its your choice. I know which one I would rather.

"there are 3 media companies, owned by even larger companies, that provide something like 85% of all media in the United States." Its way worse than that. I live in a state which has one newspaper! Queensland, Australia has one newspaper. I totally agree. Media company caps on owner rights should exist, but that isnt deregulation. Thats a blatent monopoly. If you deregulate an industry, you reduce the government influence and cost associated, while increasing freedom. However, you don't allow companies which act as a governmental regulator free reign. Media caps and deregulation are seperate things, they were spun together as doublespeak so that people wouldn't mind as much that thier media rights were taken away.

And people like low-brow programming and writing. Tabloids sell like hot cakes and so do trash magazines. It's proll feed. That has nothing to do with deregulation and rather its what general society wants.

And don't bring antireligious talk into an economics discussion, thats just being a tit.

Finally. Let the banks burn. They chose to make decisions on terrible, terrible junk bonds to expand there debt equity ratio's just like before the great depression. If Helicopter ben didnt thrown money at it like it was the Wiermar Republic, your countries currently aneamic equities sector would be alot worse. Don't bail out banks and financial institutions because they invested in junk bonds. They didnt save you from Enron, why save them? And for you morons who lied about your homeloans with no-docs, or who were beyond idiocy and signed for a variable rate 5 yr loan, you get what you deserve. If you believe houses should be investments, and not an expense, then your going to get burned just like in any capitalist environment.

"Tell us, what ruin came of America from the New Deal? Oh noes, that preceded a nice long run of American prosperity."

What did the new deal have to do with prosperity? I'd say owning one third of the worlds gold, setting up the Bretton Woods system to force payments of Oil/Gas in US Dollars, Winning WW2 and having the dominant military, more importantly navy, in the world plays the biggest part in American prosperity.

The new deal did almost nothing except RAISE the governments impact on the economy, resulting in massive tax hikes to fund it, which prolonged the depression from a recession to its historical form. What do you think would have happened if right after, say, start of this year, they did the same thing?
The Fed allowed the banks to tinker with debt equity ratio's, reclassing certain non-equity entities as equities, thus inflating and creating new sources of equity were there was none. Thats what caused the Depression,

Re:Explain this, then

[iamhigh]

But you forget about the great gains in manufacturing, aerospace, interstate commerce, and so much more that was a great boost to our economy. That stuff couldn't have been a driving force for our economic success? Do you really think all success comes down to policy? I don't.

Re:Explain this, then

[Kingrames]

How about showing you the history of it, and the good and bad that's come of it?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/

the downside from deregulation came from the fact that people's wages were artificially high from barriers to trade. when those barriers were removed they thought that they'd still be earning the same amount of money because people would naturally want to buy higher priced goods believing them to be higher quality.

Turns out that reputations for quality have to be built, and tend to be significantly more important in smaller economic communities, and are significantly weaker in global markets. Cost matters more when there are no barriers to trade. Naturally many people have issues with this, but it does eventually work out for the better.

Re:Explain this, then

[Anonymous Coward]

We de-regulated banks and got the Great Depression - that is, that whole economic collapse thing from unstable banks long before your Smoot-Hawley boogeyman ever came along.

Nigger bullshit.

The Great Depression was caused by the policies of the Federal Reserve, a government-mandated central banking scheme.

Tell us, what ruin came of America from the New Deal?

The Jew Deal is what turned the depression into the Great Depression, prolonging it for years through wage and price controls, and heavy regulation of farms and industry.

Re:Explain this, then

[Anonymous Coward]

And now because of de-regulation, the most successful countries are the ones with child labor, collapsing factories and coal mines, choking pollution and poisonous toothpaste.

Free market capitalism and lower trade barriers mean the worst quality products, the crappiest working conditions and the lowest wages, win the race, and Western democracies are permanently discredited.

Re:Explain this, then

[Kingrames]

This is because companies put people in charge of finances who only care about minimizing costs. Eventually they'll realize that this is a horrible idea, but it's a mistake they have to learn not to make.

Re:Explain this, then

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because companies put people in charge of finances who only care about minimizing costs. Eventually they'll realize that this is a horrible idea, but it's a mistake they have to learn not to make. It's a mistake the entire country is paying for. Indeed, the entire world. You are wishing on a pie in the sky dream that they'll realize their mistakes, but in reality, that has never happened in history except with the heavy (in your opinion) hand of regulation.

Fascist baby girl-killing dictatorships are ascendant, and Western values are dying away. We fly out of antiquated airports while Singapore airports are state of the art. We're descending into the past tense while countries who harvest pro-democracy demonstrators for organ donations, are taking over the world.

If we keep going with your laissez-faire dream your kids will be speaking Chinese and working to make their Chinese overlords rich. Oh no wait, the latter is already happening.

More competitive? Don't make me laugh ...

[rnturn]

... and spill my coffee.

``The broadband market is becoming more competitive and net neutrality regulations could hamper investment in broadband networks...''

Oh really. In my town we have all of two options for "broadband": Comcast and At&T. Want a business class line from either of those? Prepare to pay through the nose. And I haven't checked out whether this is true with Comcast because, well, they're Comcast, but from AT&T a business class line is no indication that you'll be able to run servers on your broadband connection. You just get to pay more.

These two have a captive market so they have little to no incentive to make a better offereing. Heck, from what I understand the area that we moved away from nearly eight years ago still doesn't even offer ADSL. And when we moved it was two years past its supposedly scheduled installation in the local office. So that is ten years for that area. So just how would net neutrality keep AT&T from installing updated equipment in their local office?

There was a promising alternative to those two: a wireless provider that included a plan for small businesses for a pretty decent connection -- same bandwidth for upload and download -- for a price much lower than either of the two biggies. The catch? Well it turns out all that inbound bandwidth I'd get with a business class connection would be wasted since the local manager decided to prohibit businesses from running their own servers. I'll try again in a year and hope that their management has gotten smarter. Until then, we'll struggle along with our IDSL connection from Covad.

I never thought I'd wind up living in a country that's turning out to be such a technological backwater.

Then why is the EU so strong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you even paying attention the world? The EU is the fastest, strongest, safest monetary system that exists this day and age. And do you know why? Because the countries in the EU have high tax rates!

Extremely high at that, and they're doing the best they've ever done in history. Taxes are good for the economy, yeah they suck, but when you get free health care, free care when you're old, and a 35 hour work week?

I like the sound of that, even if I do pay an extra 17% on everything I buy.

Its better than being run over by corporate fat cats who only use the money to buy idiotic junk they don't need.

As for the rich footing the bill, thats a laugh, they make so much money from tax breaks and all these "economic packages" that come out every year to "stimulate" the economy, they laugh and buy a new Corvette.
Meanwhile the rest of us poor working joes get a few hundred dollars back that we turn around and use to pay rent or buy some dumb new consumer toy that "we have to have!"

Fiscal planning can be done by anyone, but it is how it is twisted to benefit a small group is the problem in the U.S.

-lorweaver

True

[FatSean]

The lack of regulation which allowed commodities securities of dishonestly described risk to permeate the market was the final straw.

Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

What's wrong with net neutrality? It's a network, it's completely neutral to any party. It has absolutely no influence over the data and its intended destination; it's just completely neutral. I really can't think how the word "equality" applies.

Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na

[redxxx]

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

Well, the thing is, "free market" is different

[Moraelin]

Well, competing on the free market was supposed to bring the prices down, _but_ only as long as certain preconditions are met. The whole free-market theory is based on the assumption that the market situation has:

1. well informed buyers making the choices, from

2. a choice of perfectly interchangeable products, from

3. many suppliers for each product

Basically it's like the market for, I don't know, almost anything in the 18'th and most of 19 century. Or like the market for sliced bread or orange juice nowadays.

Unfortunately, much as the some try to pretend that if they ignore reality it will go away, all three are trivially easy to subvert by a monopoly nowadays. E.g., by making products depend on each other, it's trivial for a monopolist to subvert point 2, and thus raise the entry barriers to the point where point 3 collapses too. Add a helping of FUD, and you've subverted point 1 too. That was Microsoft's recipe for example.

The recipe used by ISPs may differ in the details, but it's still at best a mockery of what "free market" was supposed to mean. E.g., to take point 1 alone, when was the last time you knew exactly what you're getting for your money from your ISP? They fight tooth and nail even against telling you what the usage caps are, and it took a massive effort to even find out that they're throttling stuff. They simply refuse to say what they sold you, even after you bought it. Any pretense that the customers can make an informed comparison dies right there. E.g., point 3, doesn't seem to be the case in most of America.

So, unsurprisingly, a sad mockery of the free market doesn't produce the same results as the real thing. Same as if I were to run around with my arms stretched pretending I'm an airplane, I wouldn't actually fly.

So, well, it was kinda predictable in this time and age. A market abstraction which actually worked like that two centuries ago, now needs government intervention to stay anyhere near the status where those self-balancing mechanisms work at all. Otherwise, if you let corporations have it their way, eventually they'll find a way to subvert and pervert the whole thing into a non-functional carricature of its former self.

Good regulation, bad regulation

[davide marney]

The proper function of government is not to pick market winners and losers, but to look out for the common interests of the people. Most can agree that an open, freely competitive environment has a better chance at meeting our common interests than a closed, noncompetitive environment. (The catastrophic history of communism, alone, should be evidence enough of the truth of this proposition.)

Do we have an open, freely competitive market for telecommunications services in the US? The answer is clearly, no. We have a marginally competitive market composed of government-granted monopolies.

The problem isn't that we have "too much" government regulation. Without a grant of monopoly -- a government regulation -- the network operators wouldn't have a network to operate in the first place. The problem is we have the wrong kind of regulations. The government shouldn't be granting monopolies in the first place. Rather, it should be setting interoperability standards and requirements that keep the market as open and freely competitive as possible.

Seen in this light, then, these bills are a welcome addition. They at least set a standard for openness and nondiscrimination, which is a good thing for a government to be doing.

Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na

[Culture20]

Lust for gold? As silly as Zapp Brannigan is, I think "Lust for gold" is a real motive for turning neutral.

Re:why do the bad guys always come up with such na

[Culture20]

Net equality could be misread as making sure every [NIC/computer/process/meatbag] gets a cap on data transfer rates so that others get their "fair" share. Yay, we all have a 4GB/month cap, now we're equal! You wanted to download a free OSS OS DVD? Sorry, that's illegal per the net equality act. I'm sure there are more than a few groups that would like "net equality".

Potential Loopholes Could Kill Net Neutrality

[barry payne]

Depending on anti-trust to enforce net neutrality may result in a built-in failure. The FTC already abandoned net neutrality last year in a formal report against it. Failing to distinguish between the thriving, effective competition in the content market which flows over and depends exclusively on the underlying monopoly-duopoly broadband pipe market in most places, the FTC chose to favor deregulation of market power at the expense of effective competition in the content market.

Meanwhile, bringing anti-trust charges before the FTC is so cost prohibitive for many, they can only depend on the deterrent effect (very weak in this case) rather than actual enforcement after the fact.

A potential critical flaw in the bill is language that states network providers can provide favored service to specific types of data but if so, must offer the same option to anyone else transmitting the data without extra charges. Therefore, if large content providers against net neutrality strike a private deal for "fast lane" privileges, that implies "special service" must be "available" to all who may seek it.

The problem is this can be interpreted to mean very large minimums of bandwidth and GBs, rather than uniform, neutral access to divisible, tiered units of bandwidth in "per Mbs" units or flow volume in units of GBs. Most content providers cannot justify the excess capacity and will be bumped into the slower "bus lanes", while consumers of "fast lane" service will pay higher prices for what they get today.

In other words, it can turn net neutrality on its head technically through severe price discrimination by content size rather than "neutral access" to bandwidth and GBs by content of any size. It's like an electric company providing premium uninterrupted service to a coalition of "air conditioner users" who as one legal entity, meet the minimum requirements of total use, but denying the same service to an identical group of unaffiliated air conditioner users and therefore denied the price, terms and conditions of "special service" at an individual level - even though collectively, they impose identical cost on the network.

What happens then? The smaller content providers would have little choice but to join the large ones directly to avoid degraded service and get exposure in the "fast-lane", or form their own critical mass necessary to qualify for the "favored service" rate. Either way, it suppresses and undermines the existing competition in the content market.

Have faith in Congress!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fully confident Congress will pass a bill that is to network neutrality what the Patriot Act was to patriotism. We will have network neutrality... and anyone who says different will get an all expense paid vacation to Club Gitmo!

Most small businesses

[Presto Vivace]

have no idea how much the lack of net neutrality could cost their business.

orly

[Anonymous Coward]

But broadband providers and some congressional Republicans have argued that net neutrality legislation isn't necessary. The broadband market is becoming more competitive...

competition means 1 "good" broadband company and 1 "good" dsl company? really?

in my area it's either comcast (vomit) or qwest (urine) and there's no FiOS in sight (feces). having had comcast before, and having friends who still have it...i can say that SOME sort of legislation is necessary. try and download an openoffice torrent on a comcast connection, encrypted or not, and tell me again that it's not necessary. you'll get throttled down to near-zero speeds. the other option you have is to download openoffice via bittorrent over a qwest connection. in this area, qwest speeds are shit, no matter which plan you choose, and the connection is unreliable at best. a pidgeon farts and the dsl light on the modem goes dark. you'd be better off with someone standing on a highway overpass and frisbeeing openoffice cds at cars.

Your question is impossible.

[FatSean]

Decades of laws sponsored by and benefitting the wealthy make it quite difficult to put a value on someone.

We should just start trying things. If they don't work out, we'll deal with the problems as they arise.

If that kind of logic and planning is good enough for invading a nation and killing it's people, it's good enough for our tax code.

You'd rather not get your fair share from rich people, because you think some day you'll be rich?

Trend analysis shows that the 'american dream' is bullshit. More people moving down than up. Good luck with that.

Re:Your question is impossible.

[maxume]

Which question?

Anyway, you haven't done anything other than hand wave and my life hasn't been getting worse for the last ten or twenty years, nor have the lives of my immediate family, or most of my extended family.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because John Conyers is also in favor of the ridiculous PRO-IP Act. Sadly, most of the House was as well...

Two kinds of non- "neutrality"

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Packets from different types of flows require different handling to share the network bandwidth under congestion without unacceptable degradation.

A classic example is file transfer via FTP versus real-time audio streams (such as VoIP). Audio streams have a small and (depending on the codec) either limited or constant bandwidth requirement. But they are very sensitive to variations in transit time and to packet loss. FTP, on the other hand, can accept packet loss but has unlimited bandwidth. It will ramp its consumption up until it congests some hop in the network (which it DETECTS by observing packet loss). So if the packets are handled the same way, file transfers will drastically degrade audio streams.

The two can be made to share the network well by giving the stream packets priority in queueing (thus limiting variations in transit time and virtually eliminating packet loss) and perhaps compensating by enforcing a bandwidth limit (so other services, like file transfers, don't "cheat" by claiming to be VoIP streams in order to raise their speed - until they step on the real VoIP streams). The result is that the streams get good service on a small fraction of the network bandwidth while the file transfers (and similar services) divide the rest (the bulk of it) fairly.

But this requires treating different packets differently. Camel's nose in the tent...

Similarly, a telephone company sells some services where they must make service quality guarantees. For instance: connection-based voice. There are essentially three ways they can provide both these and Internet service:

1) Two separate networks - with separate equipment, lines/fibers, etc.
2) A single physical network split into two virtual networks by a bandwidth division (which is either fixed or changes occasionally). (Some examples: The DSL last-mile hop, packet services on T/E carriers or SONET tributaries multiplexed into higher-bandwidth bundles.)
3) A fully "converged" packet network, with the packets from the services for which they've written quality guarantees taking priority and the others splitting all the rest of the bandwidth.

From the company's side 1) is drastically more expensive to operate than 2) or 3), and 2) is considerably more expensive than 3). So competition drives the companies toward 3) - and drives out of business or into merger any that stay at the lower number. From the customer side the higher numbers can give better service for less money.

In particular: 3) is better for customers than 2). With 2) the unused bandwidth in the guaranteed-service partition is wasted. With 3) it the non-guaranteed, best-effort services get to use all the bandwidth that isn't currently being used for guaranteed services, on a moment-to-moment basis.

But to accomplish this the carrier must deliberately treat some of its OWN packets better than everybody else's. Another camel's nose...

These two examples are ways in which treating packets differently improve things for the customers relative to treating all packets the same. They are things that network neutrality legislation should NOT forbid.

But treating different packets differently can be misused by a carrier, to its own advantage and the detriment of its customers, in (at least) two ways:

a) It can treat its competition's packets different from its own in a non-benign way, to achieve a competitive advantage. This enables several monopolistic practices, all of which end up with the customers paying higher bills than otherwise.

b) It can delay the expense of upgrading its network by hobbling or disabling high-bandwidth services used by a subset of its customers or throttling a few of its customers that use higher bandwidths than others, in order to keep the more popular services working well for the bulk of the customers. This is a fraud - a failure to provide the advertised "Internet Service". It's also anticompetitive: It can lead to lower operating costs than a competitor who p

Re:Two kinds of non- "neutrality"

[barry payne]

agreed in concept, other than "So competition drives companies towards 3)" ... monopolies have the same incentive to reduce cost as competitive companies and this is what drives them to manage bandwidth allocation and congestion in ways that reduce cost - except they go further with service degradation, discrimination and anti-competitive conduct which would generally not appear under competition

disagree that it's "non-neutral" - net neutrality as it should be defined would not influence internal, fixed allocations and assignments of bandwidth loaded for particular protocols and applications by route or session - instead, it begins at the level of the access and use of the corresponding bandwidth - the general presumption is that under net neutrality, the company will have incentives to reduce cost as you describe and would not "over or under" load bandwidth for certain targets - absent anti-competitive incentives - another, separate problem, which indeed belongs at the FTC - but the rest belongs at the FCC

widely misunderstood is that net neutrality interferes with the "good" discrimination of differences in bandwidth, GB and service quality - it does not (beyond my comment above of large minimum requirements) - a company could have 10 different pricing plans, 4 levels of service quality and a variety of price and non-price rationing devices to control congestion, none of which violate net neutrality as long as they are not tied to content and are accessible by all customers - a primary problem with Comcast is that it exploited its market power and refused to engage in the "good" discrimination by not providing limits on GB use at all, which enabled it to engage in the "bad" case-by-case arbitrary, intimidating discrimination

"What is Rich" was your question.

[FatSean]

I'm glad that your family hasn't gotten worse, neither has mine. The numbers do show that the wealth in this nation is trickling up, and that ain't right. All of us work together to make this system work, those at the bottom of the pile deserve to share in it.

Your anecdotes are interested, but irrelevant.

Re:"What is Rich" was your question.

[maxume]

It depends a great deal on the numbers.

If the numbers show that everybody is better off, but some people are better off to a greater extent, that might be o.k. (without a couple of dozen globes to test whether more equitable progress would result in more overall benefit, who knows).

If the numbers show that very few people are better off and most people are worse off, that probably isn't o.k. (it might be okay if the majority of the people who are worse off drink a gallon of gin a week).

Re:"What is Rich" was your question.

[PopeRatzo]

If the numbers show that everybody is better off

They do not.

If the numbers show that very few people are better off and most people are worse off,

Yes, that's what "the numbers" show.

Re:"What is Rich" was your question.

[maxume]

What numbers?

In the U.S., people are certainly better off than they were 100 years ago. That's an easy test though. I would say most people in the U.S. are better off than they would have been 50 years ago. That's still probably an easy test.

Go back more than 100 years and the discussion becomes a joke. Come closer than 50 years and you need to do something other than claim that trends are such and such or numbers are such and such, you need to point at the numbers you think represent the situation and explain why your interpretation is correct.

Law doesn't make the net "neutral;" it neuters it

[Brett Glass]

The Conyers bill didn't pass the last time for good reason. See George Ou's excellent analysis explaining why it would be very bad for the Internet, at http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/34/Default.aspx