Slashdot Mirror
Obama Picks Net Neutrality Backer As FCC Chief
Ripit writes "President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive.
Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules."
What I would prefer, is if the Pipes were open pipes. The Recovery package should have included money to buy up all of the laid fiber/cable and open it up to competition.
Here in Utah, Utopia is the open fiber that any ISP can use to give you access, and it works wonderfully. Most fiber is approx $50/month, and if you don't like your provider, you can switch without needing a new wire run to your house. If internet access worked this way, Net Neutrality would be unnecessary, but it doesn't, so it's required so Ma Bell doesn't get any bright ideas about which content it should start filtering.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Do you know how they got those monopolies in the first place?
It wasn't through their own hard work and superior service, it was given to them.
It was given to them by local governments. At least, around here it was. Comcast had an essential monopoly in Baltimore county for many, many years. It made it impossible for any competing ISP to step in and grab market in this county.
Guess what? The surrounding ISPs/cable companies went out of business because of this.
Food and drug labeling laws made companies actually research drugs, instead of just giving mothers laudanum (opium and alcohol) to treat teething infants. Very effective - they behaved like angels. Until the stuff wore off.
Subprime loans were not forced or mandated by regulations. They were sought after by the banking institutions who lobbied for them.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
>>>Did the government tell them to make the loans?
As a matter of fact, yes it did. The Democrats pushed through legislation requiring banks to make "no down payment" loans in order to extend housing to as many low-income Americans as possible, and that idiot Bush signed it. (He also signed the stupid anti-bankruptcy law authored by democrat Biden.) So the answer to your question is "yes".
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Te other reason pay don't pay their mortgages is because they foolishly signed-up with variable rate loans. They could afford the original $300 a month, but when it suddenly jumped to $400 a month, then they were unable to keep up. They were living too close to the edge.
A secondary reason is an unwillingness to sacrifice. i.e. Cancel the TV, cancel the cellphone, cancel the internet & replace it with free dialup, stop eating dinner at restaurants, et cetera. My niece & her husband fit this category. If these persons learned to sacrifice, a lot of them would probably survive.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The government didn't force anyone to make bad loans. If you are a loan officer and you made a bad loan, it isn't because the government held a gun to your back.
Oh really?
"The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to "meet the credit needs" of "low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods." Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans. The two government-chartered mortgage finance firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraged this "subprime" lending by authorizing ever more "flexible" criteria by which high-risk borrowers could be qualified for home loans, and then buying up the questionable mortgages that ensued.
All this was justified as a means of increasing homeownership among minorities and the poor. Affirmative-action policies trumped sound business practices. A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit."
But let's not let those pesky facts get in the way of some good old class warfare, eh?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Agreed. The gov't reduced regulations to give the banks more flexibility - they didn't tell the banks to shoot the country in the foot.
The banking industry complained regulations were too restrictive and they couldn't get people into homes - so the Clinton administration made it easier by pushing Congress to remove a lot of these regulations. The banking industry, & republicans loved this on a business level (more sales, less rules). The democrats loved this on a "we are helping the little guy buy a home" level. Nothing was wrong with that...except as history has proven over and over and over again if you give people the opportunity they will do whatever it takes to gain power/money even at the expense of other people. There are way too many sales people, and their managers who demand this, who just want to "SELL SELL SELL". How many times have we heard this on tv shows or movies "SELL SELL SELL"...you think that is a myth? It's "SELL no matter what" attitude.
There is a local jewelry store (been around for over 30 years) in Philadelphia. They have an insane commercial that says "if you really love her, you can't let the economy stop you. Buy her that diamond because if you love her she is worth it and so is that diamond".... as opposed to saying "You want to get married, the economy is tough, we can help you by getting you and affordable ring. Oh and we can upgrade it down the road for you" Again sales people just want to sell and they don't care about you.
Order of blame:
Banks who abused the system
Gov't who didn't monitor the system
People who got into those stupid loans.
Why do I put "People" on the bottom of the list? It is similar to the Stanley Milgram experiment. Given an authoratative figure people will do what they are told even if it is known to be wrong. Authoratative figure = real estate agent (with a LICENSE) & mortgage officer (with a LICENSE) in nice suits telling their customers "don't worry we know what we are doing with years of experience and fancy computer programs that say you CAN do this."
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
First off, your source is not appropriate for a serious argument. It's an op/ed by a columnist with accusations of plagiarism to his name, not a news article.
The loans that caused the vast majority of the current mess were issued by mortgage brokers (firms like Countrywide Financial, Ameriquest Mortgage, and Ditech), not banks. Brokers are not held to the CRA standards. The idea that the CRA caused this mess has been debunked repeatedly by every study done on the subject. If you want some real sources on this, I'd suggest studies put out by a university, the Federal Reserve, or the US Treasury Department.
Some real reasons behind the arguments about the CRA:
1. Banks have hated the CRA for a long time. They were trying to dodge it or get rid of it back in the 1990's as well.
2. Conservatives oppose most government regulation on principle.
3. By blaming the CRA, it absolved the bankers of any role in creating the problem.
4. It creates an image of a foreclosed subprime homes is owned by a black person in a bad urban neighborhood. In reality, the areas with the most subprime loans are in suburbs near LA, San Diego, Denver, and Miami. In short, racism.
I am officially gone from
Not all markets are the same, that's why they behave differently.
The optimum production level of a car company or electronics manufacturer doesn't satisfy the demand for cars or electronics, for instance.
In the case of operating systems, you have what is officially called monopolistic competition, where the differences between the 3 OSes are far more than just price.
Competitive markets aren't competitive because we want to eliminate monopolies, in most cases. They're competitive because the markets they're in don't lend themselves to being monopolies. For instance, in the North End of Boston there are about 20 Italian restaurants in a 4-block area. If it were profitable to do so, they would buy each other out. It's not, so they don't, and you end up with a competitive market.
I am officially gone from
One of the real problems is local municipalities. Many of them have signed exclusive contracts for Cable TV services. For example in many Chicago suburbs Comcast has exclusive 'media services' access to the cabling right of way, in exchange comcast has to be able to service all residents within the municipality (in many towns without these agreements they only wire the middle and upper class areas).
This actually caused a bit problem when AT&T wanted to lay fiber for TV, internet, and phone. Comcast argued that AT&T was encroaching on their 'media rights'