Brain Drain, Admin Failures Threaten the FCC's Role

coondoggie writes "The Federal Communications Commission has brain drain and administration problems that could decrease its effectiveness at a time when advanced service technologies such as wireless and broadband present significant regulatory challenges. On the brain drain front, a report out today (PDF) from watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office stated that from fiscal year 2003 to 2008, the number of engineers at the FCC decreased by 10%. Similarly, the overall number of economists decreased by 14%. While the total number of engineers and economists in the workforce has decreased from 2003 to 2008, the percentages remained the same. The GAO also criticized the FCC's public comment policy, saying, 'While FCC relies heavily on public input to inform its decisions, it tends to do so without giving the public access to the actual text of a given proposal. If parties are able to submit vague summaries that may not fully reflect meetings between FCC officials and outside parties, then stakeholders will continue to question whether commission decisions are being influenced by information that was not subject to public comment or rebuttal and that, in some cases, is submitted just before a commission vote.'"

Comments

Hmm

[mewsenews]

Is this the same FCC that took a "save the children" stance over some wardrobe malfunction a while back?

I wonder why intelligent people would flee an organization guided by puritanism..

(FCC, free advice, stick to regulating wavelengths and you'll get more support from scientists and engineers)

Re:Hmm

[AndersOSU]

no.

It's completely, utterly and totally dead. It's pining for the fjords. It is no more. There is nothing even remotely resembling the fairness doctrine in american media.

If there were, AM radio would be radically different.

Re:Wait

[quatin]

What? What don't they need economists for? The impacts that frequency block control on the economy is huge! You can't go willy nilly assigning chunks of spectrum out without considering the economic impact it will generate.

More Than One Way to Deregulate

[mpapet]

Another regulatory agency being gutted right before our eyes. At what point do Americans call 'enough!' on corporate hegemony?

Enjoy your corporate deathburger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3pIDSQ1rdA

Re:More Than One Way to Deregulate

[MindlessAutomata]

That's just it. People expect the government to be this magical source of goodness and righteousness like a magical deity, somehow outside of the corruption of human behavior, if we only *try* hard enough, yet people can't possibly be good enough consumers to control a free market.

Then people whine on about fairness and "rights" when they use the words so nebulously they're devoid of meaning. What action is supposed to be "fair?" Of course, I'll get that person's subjective feelings on what "fair" is, while they chestbeat about how their personal opinions on how the world should be run are objective moral truths that they discovered by reading the Huffington Post.

The truth is, in a democracy such as ours there is an underlying free market in politics as well as business--it's ultimately up to the people to "regulate" government by voting (and in an ideal world) "regulate" business by witholding patronage, but people simply can't do it. Democracy is a sham. Just look at the replies I get, they tell me standard civics dogma like I'm unfamiliar with it and they laden it with all sorts of idealistic praise and unrealistic wish-fulfillment.

Government really is just a sort of deux-ex-machina of justice. It's supposed to "just be" good and not-corrupt and effective etc etc, and since people have that naive vision of government they go on pretending that if they wear rosy enough glasses government will become what they want it to be, and not what it is.

Instead what we really see, past all the democratic (lowercase D!) ideology, is collusion between business and government, with the ideologues putting on the blame on business and none of it on government, because Government Is Supposed To Be Inherently Good while Profits Are Bad.

Whine about Monsanto either because they make GM crops (which are good unless you buy into pseudoscience, more food for people, but weren't made by the government so are therefore evil) or because they get ridiculous patents on planet DNA (which IS bad but let's totally ignore the entity that makes up the patent system and enforces it), or because a big business is offering you a business deal you don't like ("I deserve better than this! I HAVE ARBITRARILY-DETERMINED RIGHTS!")

It's also funny how people are so willing to regulate what kind of offers businesses can offer consumers yet they're totally unwilling to regulate politicians the same way. I expect to just see more of what people learned in civics class, more uncritical nonsense where governments are ruled by angels and not men and institutions that create war and kill people are more dangerous than institutions that mainly just offer whatever deal will make them most profitable (not that businesses haven't killed or such before).

Wouldn't have anything to do with OUTSOURCING?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

"...from fiscal year 2003 to 2008, the number of engineers at the FCC decreased by 10%."

Gee, that wouldn't have anything to do with OUTSOURCING, would it?

Some idiot with a microphone will soon start blaming the education system. It's NOT the education system. It's the MONEY system. No rational, self-interested human is going to spend a lot of time and money to enter a field where they get to compete with people making $12 per hour. If the government is serious about getting more engineers in the USA, there's a simple, easy answer. PAY THE ENGINEERS WHAT THEY'RE WORTH, not "What the wage-arbitraged market will bear."

Re:Wouldn't have anything to do with OUTSOURCING?

[scamper_22]

The problem is the rest of society is not paid a wage-arbitrated market value :P
A large part of the economy is the public sector which just negotiates its pay with government and is not market based.
Doctors and lawyers limit their market supply and increase their demand via regulations ...

As such an engineer faces a severe imbalance in the West. They are talented enough to enter one of these jobs with an inflated pay scale not tied to the market. That is where they are going.

If we were all paid a market arbitrated wage, then there would be no problem. The market would in fact sort out these kinds of issues. Globally, I am probably worth $15 dollars an hour as an engineer. Globally, a teacher is probably worth $8 dollars an hour... There is a reason most western countries have severe structural deficits.

That portion of their society receiving non market arbitraged wages is grown too large relative to the market wages... and have not been corrected.
As Detroit's economy collapsed and high paying manufacturing and engineering jobs were lost... should that not have translated to lower wages for the public sector, doctors, lawyers... in that region?

We need to pick one system and stick to it as much as possible.
Either we let freedom reign and let people pay others what they think they are worth (market system).
Or we have some abstract pay scale where people negotiate their wages with the government.

Either way, it has to apply to most of society equally.

Ridiculous

[copponex]

Of course you can. The so called experts are no match for the inherent genius of the free market. Just shrink regulatory agencies to nothing, and appoint graduates of Liberty University to all the top posts. With the Free Market unshackled and Good and Simple Judeo-Christians running the show, what's the worst thing that could happen?

Take a number, FCC

[MikeRT]

From late 2007 on, the federal government has been "quietly" laying off contractors left and right. It just so happens that most federal engineers are contractors...

Bitch all you want about the state of things, but the fact is that it's cheaper for the federal government to outsource this work. Contractors can be fired without mercy and don't require a pension (more pay up front in exchange for no pension is a deal for the tax payers, especially as life spans climb.)

Re:"Republicanism" at work.

[OttoErotic]

I'm no censorship expert but I wouldn't consider the PRMC to be a 'pale shadow' of anything. Their kind of forced labeling enables policies like Wal-Mart censorship, which I think is just as destructive as any legallly-enforced censorship; it certainly hurts artists more.

Besides which, when did "less evil" become synonymous with "not evil"? It should be obvious that I'm no Republican sympathizer, and the zeal with which people jump to their party's defense is depressing and surprising. If the Democrats are marginally less inclined to asshole-ish behaviour, does that really make them any better? Hell, you could argue that they ought to know better. At least the Republicans seem to be upfront about being pricks.

Oh, and if your 1st line was a joke I give you all the credit in the world, but recommending that someone be modded 'troll' to limit their visibility in a conversation about puritanical censorship seems....pretty stupid.