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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."
But rather than just regulating, which we know never goes wrong
Oh yeah, just what we need these days, more de-regulation. Do you live under a rock, or have you not noticed an economic depression lately that is caused by total lack of regulation?
why not foster a more competitive market as well?
Competitive market in what? If you propose to let data carriers compete with one another freely, they'll go to bed with big corporations and media companies faster than you can see the dollar signs in their CEOs' eyes. Then loss of net neutrality ensues. If you propose competition between companies that produce said data, then fair enough I suppose.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The problem with the current broadband market is the cherry picking and exclusivity of many areas. While some areas are rich with broadband while others are lucky to have dialup.
Internet service needs to be treated as a utility just like electric power and telephone service. There are plenty of working regulations for telephone and power service and we know from recent history and current events when regulations are removed "to bring about competition" right? Texas and California deregulated power and now Texas and California have VERY high energy rates! That's higher, not lower, even when there is supposedly competition present. The monopoly abuses of phone companies are well documented and while there is some level of competition in phone, there are a lot of nonsense costs associated with phone services abusing customers of every form of phone service.
Capitalism is viewed by many as "that which the market will bear." This lends itself to how much nonsense and abuse the market will bear which is the condition we see today.
Right now, everyone is scrambling for ways to make profit from everything imaginable and if that means erecting some sort of toll gate system on the public interenet, then that is what they are prepared to do unless they are regulated as a utility. You should see the mess that is the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) processing industry. If you wonder why ATM fees are so high, you have to know that there are several links in the processing chain and that everyone in that chain pushes their small fees that ultimately amount to large fees. If the internet were to adopt this model, you'd be paying $2/hr to post on slashdot.
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.
It is amazing how on one hand you hear "The government made the banks do it through regulation" and on the other you hear "Deregulation of banks made them do stupid things!" Which is it? Did the government tell them to make the loans? Or did the government fail to tell them not to make the loans?
Neither: The banks made loans based on their own flawed risk calculations and poor valuation of future property values. Capitalism is based on the power of greed, but it assumes that the greedy ones are also smart. In this case, they weren't.
On top of my point, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have been encouraged to lend to lower credit families, but the crisis would have happened even if they didn't exist because the other unregulated institutions went about it with much more gusto.
Fannie and Freddie's subprime loans were shown to be on the more respectable end as opposed to the other banks who pushed their mortgage brokers to get loans no matter what the risk.
The only thing Fannie and Freddie really shows is that the government endorsed the practice, but the fat cats of Wall Street made Fannie and Freddie's bad loans look likes child's play.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Now if some mortgage underwriter took this law to mean "give people who can't afford mortgages a mortgage" or "Hey now i have an excuse to sell an extra mortgage and raise my commission" that is not the fault of the gov't that is the fault of the mortgage underwriter who abused the system (shocker).
"High risk borrowers" is a very loose statement. It's akin to saying "How much do I love you? I love you THIS much". The science of mortgage lending is more art then science - if you don't believe me speak to someone who is or was in the lending industry...oh wait, you are.
So before talking about "pesky facts" make sure you don't skew them.
Not for nothing, this statement...
The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless.
...Is extremely racist.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
"The president's job is to do what he was elected to do"
Ummm no, the presidents Job is clearly defined in the constitution, modified by laws from congress and vetted by the supreme court. If the presidents job is to 'do what he was elected to do' than all this complaining about Buh is off mark, after all he was only doing what voters put him in office to do. The idea that because President Obama got 5.4 out of 10 people to vote for him he has cart blanch to make 'change' is disturbing. He is just a man and the constitution is bigger than him.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
If Obama follows the Constitution, that would be the biggest change seen in many years.
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.