WSJ Says Gov't Money Injection Won't Help Broadband

olddotter writes "According to the WSJ, The US government is about to spend $10 Billion to make little difference in US broadband services: 'More fundamentally, nothing in the legislation would address the key reason that the US lags so far behind other countries. This is that there is an effective broadband duopoly in the US, with most communities able to choose only between one cable company and one telecom carrier. It's this lack of competition, blessed by national, state and local politicians, that keeps prices up and services down.' Get ready for USDA certified Grade A broadband."

Comments

I used to read the WSJ

[BadAnalogyGuy]

There was a time when the WSJ really spoke to me as a conservative Republican. I suppose it was because during my formative years in college, during the Clinton presidency, that I was trying to find recognition and validation for my smaller-government/more-freedom beliefs that I gravitated towards the high quality journalism of the WSJ. Sure, I dabbled a bit with the NYT, and I even once read USA Today, but these were only in experimentation. I never liked them and I certainly wouldn't read them again. I'm not a liberal, if that's what you're trying to insinuate.

Sure, I sometimes check the box for the Presidential campaign contribution on my taxes. And I suppose that government support for the Arts is a good and necessary thing. And yes, even I can agree that unions are a necessary organ of today's manufacturing system. But just because I sometimes hold these views doesn't mean that I'm any less conservative or somehow more liberal for it.

I have plenty of liberal friends, and I'm still not attracted to the ideology at all. Maybe I will occasionally join them on weekend camping trips in the woods and drum out my inner man-boy on bongos. And maybe I'll ride to work with them on my bike instead of driving my Prius. And so what if I take a couple days off to protest the cutting down of yet another plot of Redwoods? These are important things to me.

But I'm no liberal.

WTF?

[mcgrew]

How is helping broadband going to stimulate the economy? The way to stimulate the economy is to get the banks lending again and get consumers spending again. Cutting taxes on the poor and middle class does the latter, but I have no idea how to get the banks lending.

I do think that the banks need to be reregulated, and heavily. They have shown themselves to be thieves and need to be kept on a short leash. What happened to that $800b they already were handed?

Why are CEOs getting "performance bonuses" when they're doing a piss-poor job? These companies are failing because their leadership is incompetent, crooked, or both.

Yes, US broadband sucks but pouring money into the cable companies asn't going to stimulate the economy. It probably wouldn't do anything but make the cable companies richer.

Help, Moderators

[Rooktoven]

How is this flamebait? The article is an opinion piece, this is a counter opinion.