Slashdot Mirror
Broadband Rights & the Killer App of 1900
newscloud writes "Tech writer Glenn Fleishman compares the arguments against affordable, high speed, broadband Internet access in each home to arguments made against providing for common access to electricity in 1900 e.g. '...electric light is not a necessity for every member of the community. It is not the business of any one to see that I use electricity, or gas, or oil in my house, or even that I use any form of artificial light at all.' Says Fleishman, 'Electricity should go to people who had money, not hooked up willy-nilly to everyone ... Like electricity, the notion of whether broadband is an inherent right and necessity of every citizen is up for grabs in the US. Sweden and Finland have already answered the question: It's a birthright.'"
The killer app was stereoscopic pictures of women showing their ankles.
The thing about electricity is that people couldn't see that it would service more than just lights. But there were a few people out there (like Edison's lab and Tesla) that could see innumerable uses awaiting. The people just couldn't comprehend it or were rightfully dubious. I mean, traveling scam artists were well known to people at the time (probably even far before) just look at what Mark Twain was writing a decade before.
If we follow through with this analogy the solution is simple, you merely need to tell us about and convince us that the "inalienable right to broadband" will indeed herald a new era of empowerment--or at least will be easily worth the cost it's going to take getting an infrastructure up that will cover the nation. Unless you have some WAN technology I don't know about or are accepting the issues of broadband over power, I think it's hard to convince someone that a traditional infrastructure covering--say--all of the Ozarks is going to be worth a whole lot more than the few towns and cities in it that are already covered. And you'd be out of your mind to ask a taxpayer in the farmlands to subsidize via tax dollars some infrastructure their not going to gain anything from.
My work here is dung.
Let market forces decide who gets it. Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
...but this is not Soviet Russia.
In Soviet Russia, broadband comes to you
Seems to be some folks attitude to universal healthcare too.
It's a good job that these people usually get overridden in the end.
I have a serious problem with the government spending my tax dollars on rural broadband lines, and then still enabling the dumb cable companies to monopolize and charge whatever they want for internet service.
If we are paying for the infrastructure, we should own it, and we should be able to share it. Sure, there will be costs. But let's share the costs then, not pretend some capitalist market magic will make us all happy with great service, healthy competition, and constant innovation. I have horrible service, only one company to choose from, and my DVR is a piece of shit. It freezes for 5 seconds then goes through every button I pressed all at once.
Man, am I proud to be an American.
Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
Sadly you are doubtless going to be modded troll, but really, what's wrong with this? If you want to live out in the rural sticks then you should be prepared to pay the cost of doing so. It will cost you more money in taxes, more money for running water (pump and septic system upkeep), your roads will be less maintained, you may not have access to cable and will have to rely on satellite, you'll pay more for energy (having oil or propane delivered vs. natural gas out of a permanent connection), more in gas money to get places, blah, blah, blah.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A step in the right direction.
1 - Right to broadband.
2 - Human right to broadband.
3 - Human right to porn.
4 - Human right to 3D multi-sensorial porn.
5 - Ascension of mankind to a new state of consciousness and peace with the universe.
Electricity isn't a right in the USA. There are plenty of places without electricity that people still live. There are even more places without safe, drinking water and indoor plumbing.
Universal access for telephones is the law, but it doesn't apply to everyone either.
When you don't have safe running water, internet service is really, really low on the desired rights list.
Pull your heads out from where ever you've had them shoved please.
If electricity hadn't become ubiquitous, we'd have a lot less carbon being emitted today from power plants.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You need not go back to electricity; phones will do. We have already decided that communications are something we need to deliver to everyone, and the internet is the new communications medium.
Arguably, the government should stop promoting television and radio, and should put the effort into figuring out how to make the emergency notification network work on the internet... railroading connections and returning "DISASTER IN PROGRESS" errors, whatever. Then we could [eventually] reclaim all spectrum used by broadcast media for a more noble use: bidirectional communications permitting collaboration between humans. It's not like the shitty ol' push media can't be distributed via internet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Electricity is not a right. It will get cut off if you don't pay the bill.
If electricity is a right like free speech then at some point maybe we'll get to cut off free speech because it's a right just like electricity. Forget to pay your free speech bill and off it goes.
We have inalienable rights endowed by a creator. In other words, not given to us by men and as such cannot be taken away by men.
We must be pretty well off in this country when we can start calling commodities and the inventions of men "rights."
"Materialism" is not a right. You do not have a right to stuff. Free speech, the right to bear arms, a common trait of all things that are actually rights is that they do not cost money. They are intangible.
You do not have a right to tangible things. They cost money. All you can do is help lower costs so you can afford them.
Work Safe Porn
I think we may need a new word because "rights", at least in my humble opinion, don't lay an obligation on anyone else or society in general, to fund. If you desire to express yourself by yodeling on a street corner you come fully equipped to do so and society has no obligation to buy you a megaphone or lessons.
If anything, this issue is more about those asserting the right; about their assumption of a right to impose their views on others or assuage guilt for being relatively wealthier, then about those who are supposed to enjoy the right to free internet access.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Advocates for public education once had to deal with basically the same arguments. And, it's certainly true that a free basic education is not a necessity in the same way that food, water, and shelter are--but very few today would dispute that it's a necessity in the sense that, without it, an individual is at a serious disadvantage in life. It's the same with the internet. Sure, you don't NEED it, but it's going to be very hard to live a normal life in an industrialized country in the future WITHOUT at least basic access to it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
let's compare when we threw money at corporations to upgrade our infrastructure to when we did it ourselves.
I live two miles from the city switch. and all I can get is a stink'in DSL.
I am sorry the FCC needs to rethink House top routers and put the "last mile providers" out on the street, unless the people with the wires can offer something better.
House top routers would for sure make your cell phone time charges obsolete. You would be better off paying up front for your hardware and not some inflated plan for air minutes.
Its time to enter the 21st century.
Let market forces decide who gets it. Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
Differentiate between the right to get broadband and the right to get broadband cheaply. The former makes sense, and the latter is just uneconomic; an unjustified subsidy of rural areas by urban citizens.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
one person's right to health care is not the same as another.
I prefer the right to access to health care, however the one item left out of most every discussion I see is the requirement to actually lead a healthy life. Sorry, but why should the majority of people pay for other people's health problems caused by known bad habits, like smoking, drinking, and over eating?
The real problem with health care is that too many people willingly take on a car payment and exorbitant cell plan yet are offended they have to pay to take care of themselves. Too many put more effort in taking care of their cars than their own health.
Once someone can define universal health care in appropriate terms instead of just being a buzz word maybe those of us who don't favor the idea will think twice. Until then, try spending some of your own money on your health and quit expecting me to cover it while you eat out.
(and yes I know there are hardship cases, but this isn't what the current debates are turning into)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Part of the problem here is that the language of "right" doesn't really capture what we ought to be capturing here. Webster's defines a right as "something to which one has a just claim." And that is the right way to look at things like employment discrimination, etc.
But when we start talking about universal access to services like broadband, healthcare, electric, I think it's much better to speak of it in terms of what's best for society. Simply put, our society as a whole is better off with a healthy work-force. Businesses will have more predictable costs, and the playing field between large and small companies, as well as government, will be leveled substantially, promoting innovation. Likewise, it promotes economic development for everyone to have electricity, not to mention public health--it's no accident that regular bathing became much more popular once everyone had a water heater. And, in a democracy, isn't the publics access to information equally vital? Isn't the ability for all members of society to communicate on a somewhat equal footing a useful social function? In other words, let's not talk about this as a moral question, but as a pragmatic one.
High speed Internet is infrastructure. Maybe it's not a "right". But if you don't have it available to all of our population and all of your competitors do, then watch out!
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
If a tax were levied that placed a $1000 burdon on anyone who drives a red car, it is effectively a subsidy on the non-red car population. In this case, the non-red car population ends up $1000 ahead of the red car population.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Well depends what you define as broadband I suppose.
It's quite easy to get guarantee that ~everyone~ can get ~some form~ of broadband. You just need a satellite or two. Two-way sat connections can provide pretty decent throughput to any spot in the country, which more than satisfies the definitions of 'broadband'. Expensive though ... and the latency is terrible which makes it impossible to use for many of the applications you'd traditionally think of when you thought of a broadband connection.
In Europe this kind of thing is seen as helping the development of economically challenged regions. The EU has been spending lots of money on that kind of things for a while, and it started long before broadband. But BB is obviously now a part of the solution.
Who said it has to be free? In Finland, for example, you have the right to have access to an Internet connection in your home. No one said it needed to be free.
Dilbert RSS feed
The reason why the health reform as proposed by the Dems lacks popular is because, it does not go far enough. No chance to escape from whatever your employer dishes out in the name of health care. No recourse if your employer decides suddenly to drop health coverage from the compensation. Have to just bear it if your "contribution" is increased, your copay is increase and your doctor is dropped from the list of preferred providers.
No relief to the employers either. They are competing with Europe and Japan and their competitors do not have to pay for health care. If GM did not have to pay 2000$ per vehicle to provide for health care for its 1 million employees and retirees between 1990 and 2004, it could have competed effectively with the imports.
Already there is public option in so many areas where the private sector refuses to serve. National Flood Insurance Program to insure homes that can not get private insurance. Postal service to serve mail and parcels to places where FedEx and UPS wont go. The examples are endless.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This is actually a big issue when talking about 'Rights' across national borders.
The US has historically stuck to negative rights (ie rights of non-interference). The virtue has been that the burden such rights impose upon others is limited (ie the government just has to not go out of its way to impinge upon your 1st amendment rights).
Internationally, a lot of 'rights' talk is based in some way on (or related to) the human rights movement and positive rights (the right to something which must be provided by someone). Such rights inherently impose an obligation upon some party which is far greater than an obligation to NOT do something. This works, to an extent, in European nations because they have 'big government' traditions.
If you are serious about bringing positive rights to the US, you need to have a serious plan for changing the consensus view in the US for the role of the state in the day to day lives of the citizenry.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
I'd concur with that. Vice taxes in particular annoy the hell out of me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Mod parent up ... a rather nice summary of the difference between interpretations of the word 'right' in the US vs. elsewhere, and unfortunately doomed to be buried since it was posted as an AC...
The libertarian side of me says that maybe providing broadband to all isn't necessarily a good thing. Likewise, maybe providing electricity to all back in 1900 wasn't necessarily good either. In the end, we didn't just provide poor people in the country with power. Instead, we provided an incentive for people to move out into the country, leading to sprawl, demand for more roads, foreign dependence on oil, etc... From a pure efficiency point-of-view, living in the city is much more efficient than living in the country. So providing all these services to the country leads to a very inefficient system. One of the reasons why infrastructure in cities is falling apart is because we use all of our resources building infrastructure out to every rural corner of the country, when really we should be concentrating on putting our resources where it affects the most people...in the cities.
Funny you should mention the competitive disadvantage US companies have because they have to pay American employees' healthcare, because it's actually even worse than that! Many US companies pay for all their employees' healthcare regardless of where they live.
I live in Australia but work for a major US software company, which laughably gives me the best of both worlds but must be a tremendous drain on my company's bottom line. Here's the situation...
Australia has universal healthcare. The system works like this:
- Healthcare is free or very cheap via the universal public healthcare system.
- This universal system is funded by a surcharge on top of your standard income tax, but only if you make a moderate to high amount of money. Poorer people don't pay a cent, and still benefit from the system. Wealthy people pay essentially 1 or 1.5% extra income tax which isn't a huge deal in the scheme of things.
- However, you can avoid some or all of the surcharge if you take out private health insurance. The existence of a public/universal health care system does not mean there is no private option, and indeed Australia has a thriving private health insurance industry. Thus, those that can afford private healthcare are encouraged to purchase it, because it reduces the drain on government money, and also means you don't have to pay the healthcare-related surcharge on your taxes.
Australian employers therefore do not, and have never, paid for healthcare. Healthcare is NOT tied to your employer, even if you have private insurance (you pick a company and buy that insurance yourself, just like car insurance or house insurance). And if you don't have private insurance ... the public system will still cover you.
However, the American company I work for, apparently because it is too complicated to set up different HR regimes for each country, pays for private health insurance for me and my whole family, even though that is virtually unheard of for companies in Australia to do. So basically - my company pays for a (expensive high level) health plan for me, I enjoy the coverage of that plan ... AND I make a saving in my taxes because I'm avoiding the surcharge for the public system (because I am covered by a private fund and not draining the public one).
Great for me! But wow, that must cost my company a lot to do that everywhere in the world, when really they only need to do it for their American employees ... lol.
I understand that most of the population on /. is not rural, but your blatant stereotypical prejudices are amazing!
"rural sticks?"
"move to civilization?"
I live in what you would call the "sticks". Do you think we live in shacks, don't wear shoes, and cook over the fireplace?
I am lucky enough to not be one of those that "have to rely on satellite" , in fact I have the choice of DSL, Cable, and fiber to my house (I chose the fiber drop), I know that I am the exception, but let me straighten out a few other things...
Taxes are higher because I live out in the sticks? Really? I don't have to pay taxes / fees for any municipal offices or services, just county, and the last time a major tax hike was instituted, the entire incumbent county council was booted from office.
I pay LESS for water than when i lived in "civilization"- I only have to pay for the power on my well pump. The septic system is well balanced and is basically no maintenance.
Roads are maintained by the county, they get the same round robin updates as the rest of the county, except with less traffic, they are not as damaged.
There are competing LP distribution companies to keep LP costs in check, but we use energy star electrical appliances, so I can't comment on any cost/benefift analysis on LP/NG.
OK maybe it costs more in gas... nope .. S.C. has some of the lowest prices of gas in the country, and gas is usually 5-10c cheaper near my house than in the city.
So let me sum up:
If you want clean air and open spaces and LOWER COST OF LIVING move to the country.
When this Country was created and you wanted to share your views and exercise your freedom of Speech you went to the town square and spoke. This was what free speech was all about.
Where is the town square in the 21st Century?
Where do we share our views?
Why Its right here at shashdot. Yes its on the Internet.
Now we pay the ISP's for Speech. Thats not the Free we should be talking about. The ISP's want to block traffic they do not like, traffic that does not make them cold cash, we have to watch this closely.
The founding fathers could not have invisioned that speech would stray into the gigahertz bands. But if they had, Some of that bandwidth would have been by law given to the people. Other parts reserved for the public good, like the military and fire/police etc. Come to think of it, a working radio infrastructure would also be useful to the fire/police.
We should have the right to own the infrastructure. We should have the right to put a radio router on our roof. And share the connectivity. We are talking 300 megabit channels, in the GigH. frequency ranges. How many places do you go where there is not a house with in 5 miles. Its like a Gun, you have to buy it and buy ammo. The same is true for a radio router, You have to buy it and feed it electricity. But we should have the right. Not be ignored by the FCC for the good of the duopoly's/monopoly's.
A radio last milewould give ISP's a level playing field And There could then be 100s not 1 or 2 ISP's to provide backbone connections. It might even be better if the backbone was public as well. Its infrastructure like the Highways. It can make or break this country.
I understand that most of the population on /. is not rural, but your blatant stereotypical prejudices are amazing!
Your outrage is wasted. I grew up in the rural sticks. My town had a population of 500. It had so few people that not only did we have a single telephone exchange but we all had the same first four numbers, i.e: 895-6XXX. The nearest grocery store was 14 miles away. The nearest gas station 8 miles away. The nearest traffic light was 10 miles away and was only a flashing light at that.
Do you think we live in shacks, don't wear shoes, and cook over the fireplace?
Where did I say that?
Taxes are higher because I live out in the sticks? Really?
Around here they are. Most people who live in rural areas where I'm from do it so they can own a decent amount of land. Having a large amount of land in NYS will raise your property tax bill above and beyond that of someone in the city, even though you aren't paying for all of the services and extra government of the city.
OK maybe it costs more in gas... nope .. S.C. has some of the lowest prices of gas in the country, and gas is usually 5-10c cheaper near my house than in the city.
I don't know the particulars of your situation but my point was that you'll usually have to drive more by virtue of living in the country. My point wasn't that the price of gas is higher in the country. Driving more miles will cost you more in gas money.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Says Fleishman, "Electricity should go to people who had money, not hooked up willy-nilly to everyone...Like electricity, the notion of whether broadband is an inherent right and necessity of every citizen is up for grabs in the US.
Same arguments being thrown at health care. But every week I help load someone exercising their right not to have health care in an ambulance because they collapsed. Even loaded one of them into a helicopter for a $10,000 trip to the ER. Unless you're prepared to stand by and let people die for lack of emergency care, then what we're doing now doesn't work. Otherwise we end up taking them to ER, with no insurance and no real income and the prices go up for the rest of us.
You could make the same argument for electricity. I have a friend building a homestead in that bastion of liberal thought we call rural Georgia. The state made him get a rental this winter or they threatened to take his kids and put them in a foster home. The state of Georgia doesn't view electricity as a luxury if you have kids. Any one you teabaggers want to argue we don't really need child protective services? Go on, make that case. Demonstrate how far gone intellectually you really are.
As technology changes what in one time was a luxury becomes an integral part of everyday life. At some point there's a blurry line between necessity and luxury. Making those choices from the perspective of some Grizzly Adams isolationist doesn't really account for the real world consequences.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Perhaps the writer overlooked this one little fact: Since when did we have a right to electricity? We don't. His argument is a non-starter.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Only if the people who aren't useless decide to support the people who are.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Broadband access, via Hughes as just one of several options, is currently available in the following areas:
Earth
Given that anyone, anywhere in the above location, already has access to an internet connection of 1Mbs+, why is such a law needed?
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
I think that works if there's no inherent advantage to having the broadband over not having it.
Here in the UK if you file your tax return online you have extra time to get it in (the postal deadline is earlier), and while you don't need a broadband connection to do that you do actually need an internet connection. Government services having an advantage if done over the net is hardly a reason to subsidise internet for everyone, and we're not quite there yet with internet being required for a "standard" life, but I think it will get that way.
At the very least, those middle-of-nowhere towns do have electricity and water. If TV, radio and electronics are going to go the way of the net and become as ubiquitous as electricity then I think you at least need to provide a minimum broadband (or otherwise 'always on' connection) to the bulk of your population.
It doesn't have to be 100Mbps fibre, but it should at least allow them to download software updates and stream low-res media without hour-long delays.
There are clearly compromises to both lifestyles, but as long as you don't take it to extremes and demand a huge pipe into your population:12 town then I can't see a problem with it.
Are you seriously suggesting that the solution is that everyone just move to the city, and anyone who doesn't is either wanting to be subsidized for their lifestyle or should be forced to pay more for basic utilities?
Yes, if you want to live in rural areas you should be prepared to pay the full cost of doing so. It's bullshit to expect other people to give you money for free.
Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that some industries only exist in rural areas? Farming and agriculture, for example, is not going to happen in urban areas.
Then why don't the farmers charge more money for their product so they can pay for their higher utility costs? Why have the government step in as a middle man?
Economics, education, opportunity, feasibility of certain industries, security and yes sometimes cultural inclinations are among the many factors of why someone would live in rural areas.
Preaching to the choir. I grew up in a rural area and desire to move back to one. I just don't desire to have other people subsidize my expenses when I do so.
To say we can solve the problem by everyone moving out of rural areas is just boneheaded.
Fortunately I didn't say that. I just said you should be prepared to pay the full cost of living in the community you choose. Should rural areas pay some subsidies to city folks so they don't have to drop insane amounts of money paying for parking?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
So what? The grandparent implied that you can't live near the east coast without residing a "stones throw" away from urban sprawl. That's clearly not the case.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Wait, whose population? I'm still very much independant and since no one owns me, I'd like to continue to decide what is best for me.
How much does the government own of me? Can I buy it back? May I not accept your generosity and therefore be exempt from your decision that I'm costing you too much money?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Not quite.
I lived on a street once, down in Florida, that had a dozen houses. It was across the street from a new subdivision. Our street did NOT have cable service, either TV or Internet. The subdivision did. I lived on the corner, and the main junction box was across the street from me, MAYBE 40 feet from my house. The cable company refused to run cable to our house, saying that most people on our street already had satellite dishes, it wasn't profitable. No, I couldn't pay for it, they just refused to do it at all. They can do that.
The electric companies CANNOT REFUSE to run you power. They can bill you the tariffed rate, which was set by the gov't, but if you are willing to pay it is ILLEGAL for them to refuse to run the lines. Ditto with telephone service or any tariffed variation like a T-1 line.
That is the difference we're talking about.
http://www.google.com/search?q=tariffed+service
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
And if there's any reason left in the world, you will fail.
Declaring something a "positive right" means you are declaring a "right" to a portion of someone else's life.
No. Just no.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
Electrification of the USA was not mainstream in some areas until the 1950s. My late grandmother in law told me that she didn't get electricity until well after the war. Frankly, for her, it wasn't even really that big of a deal to have it.
Bottom line is, a lot of people didn't get electricity not because it wasn't provided, but because they just simply didn't want to have it. It's like, if they were content with life without it, why have it?
It's the same deal with broadband. Everyone keeps saying that broadband should be everywhere, but, really, does everyone want it? There's enough of a sense that when choosing a place to live, the availability of broadband is a consideration. If people are choosing to do without it, well, maybe they just don't need it as much as the corps we work for would make them think they need it.
For the most part, for many people, broadband is just entertainment.
This is my sig.
So what does that have to do with the grandparent's complaints about subsidizing broadband to rural homes? And what is an "anti-subsidy"? If it is merely not paying someone for their economic choices, then it doesn't have the effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle. Else every dollar you spend on something other than me is an "anti-subsidy" which I really wish you'd stop.
This guy has Lifestyle A. I have lifestyle B, and that guy has lifestyle C. A, B, and C pay the same amount of taxes.
For some reason, the government decided that Lifestyle A is best. And it subsidizes that by providing X to anyone who meets the Lifestyle A conditions. X could be in the form of a direct payment, or like above, a payment to someone else to help implement Lifestyle A.
An anti-subsidy is when the government has determined that Lifestyle C is bad. We have decided that somehow That Guy uses more than his 'fair share' of government services. Instead of charging usage fees for government services, we have decided to hide the cost into the general budget. Therefore anyone following Lifestyle C doesn't have the option to pay directly for their lifestyle, and anyone following A or B is paying a bit more than what they use.
Therefore the government levies a tax on some aspect of Lifestyle C that is distinct from both A and B. As a result, A and B think this is a great idea, since their taxes remain the same. Lifestyle C now has a supplimental negative factor applied to his lifestyle. That is what I meant by calling it an anti-subsidy. You aren't encouraging A or B, but you are penalizing C.
The issue is that it is one of the tools which the government uses to obsfucate the taxes which it levies on a person, and without a clear idea of what you are paying to the government, it is easier for the government to abuse you.
It also creates a new class of crime, and an erosion of your rights. It would be unconstitional to say that C could no longer consume an unhealthy diet, but it is somehow constitutional to say that C must pay more because of that diet?
One of the reasons why I oppose any sort of Federal Healthcare is because the Federal government hasn't shown that it can be trusted to not use even the slightest power responsibly. I'm just not ready to throw it in and have the individual reclassified as a Serf yet again.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
They are an insidious way to implement a tax hike as well.
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product. I prefer to simply stop at the first goal.
What happens when your 'vice' is ended? Too often, vice taxes are used to fund activities unrelated to the ending of the vice, and therefore, if that revenue stream ends, then the government finds that it is now overbudget, and must either run a debt or raise taxes on everyone.
It is a convenient way to disguise a planned general tax hike and make it more palatable by targeting it at an 'unliked' minority. Then, either the minority continues to exist and pay extra taxes, or it ceases to exist, and the government is now overbudget.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that because Lifestyle A or B is normally more expensive, then not subsidizing it is the "anti-subsidy".
No worries. I'm sure that there is some formal term that an Economist PhD has coined that I am not aware of. Maybe negative-subsidy?
I was trying to differentiate it from a fine or penalty, because a fine implies that someone broke a law and was being penalized for doing so. In this case, the individual has not broken a law, but is being penalized anyway.
It scares me because they may be used in a way to restrict/encourage behaviors that would not normally be even legally regulated by the government.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Every generation acts as if it were the first to invent sex. Maybe it's because parents are so good at forgetting what they were like at 19... But every history geek ought to know that there were plenty of times in history when sexual mores were as free and relaxed as they are today. And no, your generation did not invent pictures of naked women either. Porn was around for as long as photography, and before that there were painters who could do much better than the porn you had in 1993. And heck, I bet cavemen painted pictures of naked women too, and had way more sex and you do today.
Gee... maybe we shouldn't have those. Socialism seems to be the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems (like beer; thanks Homer Simpson).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Vice taxes don't tend to have much of an effect on the addicted (the addiction outweighs long-term financial concerns), but they tend to drive down usage of those not addicted, but using regularly. It can help prevent another addiction case.
It doesn't always work (especially if not carefully considered), and rarely if ever does it work perfectly, but it can have positive effects.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Who gave you the authority to question Australian constitution? Australia is a democracy, pretty decent one at that. If they want to tax the rich 1.5% more to provide for universal health care it is their right. If you think that is a bad idea and that will sap the enthusiasm of the whole population, demotivate them to earn money and in general lead to general lethargy and lack of industriousness, you should rejoice. You would be able to show 10 years down the line how moribund Australian economy has become and use that as a real life example of what happens when people ignore the supply side economic principles. If you are so confident supply side economy is the best there is why are you so insecure?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This isn't the government we're talking about here, it's the general population. Yeah, and like it or not, they own a small piece of you. And you own a small piece of them.
You live in a society that has to work together, and your actions and choices have consequences to people beyond yourself. Sometimes, your choices may feel good to you, but they come at the expense of others.
Sometimes those consequences are so bad that the original choice is banned. Some other times, the choice is not so bad to be banned, but it hardly becomes fair that everyone is forced to pick up your slack.
Deal with it.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Before and during FDR's administration, the free market electric company shills argued that providing "socialized electricity" would be a disaster financially since generating electricity was supposedly so expensive that there was no way the government could provide cheaper service. To back up their claims, they pointed to a few mismanaged municipal electric programs as proof that it could never work. In reality, many of the electric companies were enjoying fat monopolies and wanted to keep their operations small scale so they could keep prices high. The government finally stepped in during the 1930's and proved that electricity did not have to be so expensive if the provider did not have profit as their only motivation. This sounds so familiar to another debate over other services that should or should not be "socialized" come to think of it...