Wisconsin Public Internet Struggles Against Telecom, Legislature

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Ars Technica: "The University of Wisconsin's Internet technology division and a crucial provider of 'Net access for Wisconsin's educational system are under attack from that state's legislature and from a local telecommunications association. At issue is the WiscNet educational cooperative. The non-profit provides affordable network access to the state's schools and libraries, although its useful days may be numbered unless the picture changes soon. Under a proposed new law, the University of Wisconsin system could be forced to return millions of dollars in federal broadband grants that it has already won, spend far more money on network services, and perhaps even withdraw from the Internet2 project."

Comments

WTF is it with these Telcos?

[advocate_one]

can't they stand ANY competition?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they? They've got enough money so they don't have to. Corrupt politicians make sure of that.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[future assassin]

Nope they can't handle it. Its a free market and once they are free to get big enough they are free to rape you while financially supporting your elected officials to elsablish laws that support corporate rape of you.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[VGPowerlord]

Nope they can't handle it. Its a free market and once they are free to get big enough they are free to rape you while financially supporting your elected officials to elsablish laws that support corporate rape of you.

No they aren't, they're a monopoly mandated by the government because the govt doesn't want more than one telecom of each type laying lines in their area.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the Telco industry is that it is not a free market.
If a sufficiently large alternative infrastructure were created we may see some changes in the industry, but as long as the Telcos continue to keep themselves regulated to the point where no alternative infrastructures can be built there will be no change.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Ironchew]

No they aren't, they're a monopoly mandated by the government

I don't think you fully grasped the GP's quote:

Its a free market and once they are free to get big enough they are free to rape you while financially supporting your elected officials to elsablish laws that support corporate rape of you.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Anonymous Coward]

<paraphrase>They're not a government mandated monopoly, they just have exclusive rights to be the only ISP in town granted by the government!</paraphrase>

What the fuck is the difference between these two?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[cpu6502]

>>>Hey moron, the Telcos are not a government mandated monopoly.

The "moron" responds:
Yeah they are. My county government MANDATED that, "Our citizens want cable television. Let's hire somebody to lay the cables and give them an exclusive deal for ten years," and then handed it over to the highest bidder (suburban cable - later renamed comcast). QED: we have a government-mandated monopoly.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[smelch]

Watch what happens when I bold:

Its a free market and once they are free to get big enough they are free to rape you while financially supporting your elected officials to elsablish laws that support corporate rape of you.

That's like lying the truth, it makes no sense.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[SETIGuy]

I'm somewhat surprised that the "R-word" is mentioned so little. The programs being dismantled were put in place by Democrats. Republicans think that alone is reason to get rid of them. And, of course, anything that benefits the public must be bad.

The Republicans are in charge now, and they don't have a lot of time before the voters kick them out. So they're working as quickly as they can to dismantle the University of Wisconsin system. They'd like to pseudo-privatize the big school in Madison. "Flexibility" is the buzzword there, and it means less public funds, higher tuitions, and fewer in-state students.

In the telecom area, I think the next step will be to force areas that have a telephone cooperatives for phone and internet to sell to a commercial for profit entity and well below the infrastructure value. "Cooperatives are communistic, don't cha know, but AT&T is competitive, and that brings down prices." Rural communities with cooperatives in WI have better internet access (fiber) than I do in the city in CA (cable).

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[dgatwood]

Actually, there is no evidence that a free market will help. In every non-urban area I've seen that has allowed additional telcos or cable companies to provide service, the result has been the same: the incumbent carrier, whose lines are long since paid for, undercuts the new carrier to the point that they cannot make any money. The new carrier goes under and sells their lines in a bankruptcy sale to the incumbent carrier, the backers of the new company get screwed, and the incumbent carrier gets a free infrastructure upgrade. Then, they raise rates above where they were before.

Last-mile infrastructure is expensive. Except for large cities, it isn't feasible for anyone other than the government to roll it out. This is why the government provides grants and tax breaks to subsidize the construction of last-mile infrastructure. The only feasible alternative to this that has actually been shown to work is government construction and maintenance of the relevant wire infrastructure. In places where the government owns and maintains the wires, free market competition tends to work very well among the various ISPs that lease access. Those ISPs need only provide blocks of IPs, routing infrastructure, and upstream connectivity from a central office. This makes competition much more feasible than having hundreds of companies trenching your yard and laying cables.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who realize that there is too much government intervention for the free market to operate are also the same people who oppose any government-run wire infrastructure projects (because that would be increasing government interference in their minds) and thus actively thwart the one solution that would actually allow the free market to operate in any useful way. As a result, with the exception of a few very rare, forward-thinking communities, telecom in the United States is a train wreck in slow motion, with emphasis on "slow".

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[imric]

ROFLMAO!

"If a sufficiently large alternative infrastructure were created"

Out of pixie dust and wishes, no doubt. Because homeowners just LOVE to allow utilities across their properties, and one would NEVER EVER (read, always) hold blocks, neighborhoods or cities' infrastucture plans hostage. That means NO building without - unless, of course the government forces the issue. Of course, if THAT happened, the right wing would be screaming, right? Just like they scream if equal access to existing government-mandated, funded, and ultimately maintained (through tax breaks) ROW and infrastructure is proposed. The right defends monopoly in the name of competition, and then screams 'but its not a free market' as if they were actually interested in either freedom or competition as opposed to corporate entitlements that suck the lifeblood out of consumers and into the pockets of politicians.

We have the best government that money can buy, and the corporations have the most money. Regulation is the correcting hand of the market, but right-wing parrots have been taught to cry 'free market'! 'free market'! 'awwwk'! and to vote AGAINST the invisible hand that corrects the market, to their own detriment, and to the detriment of the defense, health, economy and ultimately the nation itself.

So good luck with that 'alternate infrastructure'. If any become possible, expect right wingers to ban it or co-opt it out to existing players at the expense (but not benefit) of taxpayers.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are making about R vs D. WRONG answer. If you want to fix the REAL issue with politics stop making it a game of 'my side won'.

Here in NC we had stuff introduced by D's and shouted down by R's as the worst thing ever. Flip of power. R's introduce the EXACT same bill shouted down by D's as worst thing ever. See the problem?

Corrupt is the right word for it. These bills are written by the telecoms. Plan and simple. They just keep reintroducing them until they stick.

It honestly is just laziness on the part of these legislatures. They do not bother reading the bills and look to the senior guys around them on how to vote. As they want something else passed they vote for it.

If you somehow think your state is immune to it, think again.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[obarthelemy]

Look at the situation here in France, it's funny how our very socialist country came up with something that's quite good for the consumers, and OK for the providers. Actually, I think these are Europe-wide rules, or guidelines.

Back in the Minitel era (hay ! that's supposed to be killed next year, and there's a bit of an outrage about that :-p), we had the typical state monopoly, with good service, bad prices, and rather bad features (except that wonderful Minitel!). In order to foster competition, the state decided that France Telecom, the monopoly, had to 1- let ISPs use space in their local exchanges and/or 2- let competitors take overall ownership of the customer relationship. We ended up with 2 kind of ADSL service:
"partially unbundled": FT still bills for connection to the grid, manages the last mile ,provides a phone number. ISP provides IP services (which typically include Internet, Phone, TV). This typically costs 20 euros for FT, plus 30 for ADSL. (12 and 20 USD, resp.)
"totally unbundled": ISP becomes the sole provider, including billing for the last mile even though it is still typically owned/maintained by FT. FT bills nothing, does not provide a phone number... This typically costs 30 euros (unmetered, as far as I know un-DPIed, typical ADSL2+ speed)

The back end setup is quite flexible: ISPs can just pay and use FT's cables and switches, and/or rent space for their own switches at the local exchanges, and/or lay their own backbone cables... I think they even can take over the last mile if they feel like laying cable.

I think ISPs had to commit to some kind of coverage, using the argument that since they didn't HAVE to actually lay cable, they could cover most customers.

In their heyday, we had around 10 ISPs competing nationally. We're down to 4 major ones (I don't know if there are purely regional operators). Prices are good and services are rather advanced. We're lagging with Fiber though, I'm not sure why... maybe customer apathy, I personally don't care about it. Interestingly, there's a strong movement towards ADSL operators also going for the mobile phone market.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Moryath]

There IS such a thing as right and wrong.

Wisconsin built up a wonderful public infrastructure during the years the Democrats - and even to a lesser extent, moderate Republicans (we'll never see the likes of Tommy Thompson again sadly: the Tea Tardier fringe will make sure no sane moderate ever survives the primaries) - were running the state. Solid public utilities. Lots of PUBLIC infrastructure in the form of parks, public pools, public recreation tracks. Things that the ENTIRE public, rather than just an elite few, get to enjoy. The Milwaukee river and other river systems, troubled by decades of runoff from irresponsible asshole factories, actually were getting cleaned up.

What's been happening lately? The Republican Party's old "GOP" initials seem to stand for Greed Over People. "Tax cuts" and "tax incentives" that go to nobody but billionaire robber barons time and again. Dismantling the ability for unions to form, let alone maintain a balanced negotiating stance. They want to throw environmental regulations - you know, those things that go towards clean air, clean water, having your kids able to play in a local park that isn't a totally fucking contaminated waste dump - out the window.

The ridiculous notion spread around that people who are below, at, or barely above the poverty line should "pay their fair share" (what the fuck is "their fair share" anyways?) for things that go to the public good overall, like vaccinations. The constant push to "spread the pain" by converting public goods (like roads) into revenue streams that always, ALWAYS disproportionately affect the middle and lower class more than the higher, selling off public utilities into "private company" hands... and always, like we see with Shithead Walker in WI, coming back around as bribes and kickbacks to the involved politicians.

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[elrous0]

The legislature is just handing out a little payback to all those hippie college students taking over their capital.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Moryath]

Go further: there is ample evidence (100% of historical record) that a "totally free market", absent regulation, devolves into monopolist rape of the population.

You have to have regulation, or you can't have a competitive market (which is vastly different from a "free market"). Free Markets = Fuck the Consumers. Competitive Markets are what most "conservatives" think they get out of "eliminate regulation" cries... right until some asshole buys out their company and ships the factory to India, China, or somewhere similar.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Kuukai]

It's called "sarcasm", it's this hip new way of expressing yourself. It works best over the internet.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Marillion]

The aesthetics of too many wires running everywhere is at best a minor concern if it ever was a concern at all. Utility companies (including telcos, of course) are a Natural Monopoly because the physical plant infrastructure is so expensive that it's a prohibitive barrier to entry for any competition. The common solution for decades has been to accept that fact and balance the negative effects of a monopoly via strong regulation that prevents things like price gouging and service apathy.

We're at an interesting inflection point where wireless services and wired services are really competing with each other. The wireless services are not quite as much of a monopoly as wired services, but the barriers are still pretty high.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[smelch]

It's called slandering the free market. Blow you.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Red Flayer]

My county government MANDATED that, "Our citizens want cable television. Let's hire somebody to lay the cables and give them an exclusive deal for ten years," and then handed it over to the highest bidder

You're still conveniently forgetting the existence of natural monopolies that necessitate this situation. Even if your County didn't grant the telco a monopoly, you'd still have, at best, a single provider.

You argue that the only reason we have a monopoly is because it is government-mandated. This is false.

We have a naturally-mandated (due to extremely high build-out cost) monopoly that is recognized and over-seen by government. It is not government-mandated. It is government-regulated.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[BlueStrat]

Look at the situation here in France, it's funny how our very socialist country came up with something that's quite good for the consumers, and OK for the providers.

It doesn't seem to be working out so well from the perspective of national economic stability and viability. Look at Greece, Ireland, Spain. France is also finding itself in economic trouble and is enacting various austerity programs. The economic consequences of their massive social programs & policies are dragging down the entire EU like dominoes, one country at a time (so far one at a time...that could change).

Strat

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Squiddie]

It is not the case that social programs drag down the economy, rather it is the failure to tax the wealthy and regulate banking. In the US, social programs are still being blamed for the same thing, yet we spend very little on such things. We do spend more on war, tax breaks for the rich, and bailouts for large corporations. In France, the economy is going down the shitter, just like in the US, but at least their people live more comfortably, on average, than they do in the states. Some would argue that defaulting on their debt would be better for many European nations than those cutting everything.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Culture20]

Tea Tardier

Doody face poo-poo head! Name calling of that sort has no place in informed and intelligent discourse.

The ridiculous notion spread around that people who are below, at, or barely above the poverty line should "pay their fair share" (what the fuck is "their fair share" anyways?) for things that go to the public good overall

Their fair share is something more than 0 (or more than negative as it is in some cases). The poverty line isn't at the same place it was decades ago. There are truly poor people, usually homeless, living day to day, being cared for by the people around them, and then there are people below the poverty line like I used to be, with my computer, car, air conditioned apartment, 3-squares a day, all without government assistance (unless you count taking EIC once). I didn't have internet access at home, but I had it at work. Yes, I was juggling money and often raced to the bank to beat a check, but I knew that even then, I lived like a king compared to people from ages past (or the folks in the shelters or third world countries today).

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Klinky]

Operatives within the free market would never buy government off & make the market less free?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Yaa 101]

What you describe is a Monopoly.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Bartles]

Please give an example of this, "totally free market" of which you speak.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[compro01]

Internet2 exists just fine, it's just not available to the general public. It's like the regular internet used to be, when it was only available through post secondary institutes, research institutes, etc.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Moryath]

The market that brought the US a company called "Standard Oil."

The same market that brought us AT&T (pre-court-ordered breakdown).

Need more?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[BlueStrat]

It is not the case that social programs drag down the economy, rather it is the failure to tax the wealthy and regulate banking. In the US, social programs are still being blamed for the same thing, yet we spend very little on such things.

Oh, well, since *you* say so, that must make it true, despite all the widely-available Federal budget data that flatly contradicts this. Just an FYI, if the government took every last penny from the top 10%, this wouldn't even come close to balancing *this* year's budget alone, but it would succeed in destroying the US economy.

Strat

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[obarthelemy]

From the subject at hand, ie competition in the broadband space, our somewhat regulated approach is working quite well. It's not so much that laws and regulations are bed per se, it's that good ones are... good, and bad ones are ... bad. I don't know of other systems that worked well, maybe the US should emulate one of those.

I'm not making a general statement about the French, German... systems being better for everything, just giving an example of one area where it worked out quite well. There's plenty of other areas where the picture is not as rosy.... and plenty of areas where we're better off, I think (on the top of my mind: our health & retirement benefits are not linked to our employer, so we can't be wiped out by an Enron, nor an illness).

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Red Flayer]

We've been over this before.

Just to be clear, since you haven't written it out in your posts in this thread...

You believe that we should have government owned and operated infrastructure, leased to private companies for content delivery, as per previous posts you've made. (Whereas, a couple years ago, you believed that competing telcos should be laying out their own privately owned infrastructure).

This is still your belief, correct? Or have you changed your mind?

And for the nitty-gritty... who should pay to dig the trenches and lay the cable? That was the original trade-off, a grant of regulated monopoly in exchange for the telco bearing the expense of laying the cable. These monopolies we're dealing with now represent us paying the price for damn-near-free (to the consumer and municipality) buildout. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[drsquare]

Taken a look at America's budget deficit and trade deficit recently? And I'm not just talking about federal level. When you throw in state, city and private debt too, it seems the entire American economy is propped up by borrowing.

Those European economies were affording their social programmes fine before Wall Street fucked the world economy.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Falconhell]

Personal I find the "free market" does a fine job of slandering itself. Hows that going in Somalia by the way?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Ironchew]

Oh, pardon me for tarnishing the good name of an abstract, unproven theory! If it's your philosophy, that's fine with me, but don't expect people on the internet to stop "slandering" it.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[scot4875]

Your entire argument can be summed up thus:

"There are people who have it even worse, so everyone else should just shut the fuck up and like it."

--Jeremy

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[RatPh!nk]

Look at the situation here in France, it's funny how our very socialist country came up with something that's quite good for the consumers, and OK for the providers.

See that is the thing here in the modern day US (and I imagine lots of other parts of the "free market" societies). OK isn't good enough for business - it has to be unsustainably over the top better than last quarter/year/week - rake in the dough GREAT. If it works or is tolerable for the customers that is an added bonus.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[scot4875]

So, what, are you implying that because the US has less social programs, it isn't having economic trouble? That economic troubles are exclusive to EU countries? If not, what, exactly, is your point?

--Jeremy

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[slashmydots]

The answer is no. You can't compete with nonprofit pricing or worse. The worst thing is, it would instantly skyrocket the price of internet that's actually good like what I and most slashdotters want. What if they just tax it and give it out for free? My brother is on a "free" internet connection with everyone in his 20 or so room apartment and the speeds are up and down and some jackass keeps jamming up the router, probably with too many peer to peer connections. I know my linksys sure likes to throw a fit under those conditions.
So yeah, cheap or free public internet would take away soooo many customers who can barely pay the ISP what they do now because they see the internet as a need. You cut any company's customer base in half and it's not going to be pretty.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[riverat1]

We have a naturally-mandated (due to extremely high build-out cost) monopoly that is recognized and over-seen by government. It is not government-mandated. It is government-regulated.

And that is why they should separate the content from the delivery of said content. A company that only owns the fibers/wires and has no content of its own (other than customer service stuff) can sell the access to your portal to any content provider you prefer. Make the monopoly part only about the part that has to be a monopoly and allow anyone else to compete for your attention over your access port.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[sunspot42]

if the government took every last penny from the top 10%, this wouldn't even come close to balancing *this* year's budget alone

Source?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[BlueStrat]

So, what, are you implying that because the US has less social programs, it isn't having economic trouble? That economic troubles are exclusive to EU countries? If not, what, exactly, is your point?

My original point was a simple correction to the post to which I replied that erroneously claimed entitlements don't make up the majority of the US budget.

As to the other portion of your post, no, I don't think the US is without economic troubles. It is. Spending is one of (but not the only) the major reasons, of which entitlement spending tops the list.

What's happening in the EU regarding economic problems will happen in the US, and for basically the same reason...too much government spending with borrowed money. At this point, there is no avoiding a major economic/monetary crisis in the US. It's only a matter of time, and how much damage that occurs depends on if the government warns the US citizens and helps them prepare or continues on "whistling past the graveyard". It also depends on if the US government takes any meaningful steps to reduce spending and debt in a short enough period of time to matter.

So far, all the US government has done (TARP, QE1 & 2, "Stimulus", etc) is put off the crisis for a short time at the cost of making things worse when it does happen, meanwhile denying there's very bad news coming soon.

Strat

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[smelch]

I was just kidding (hence the "blow you" at the end), because I missed the sarcasm. In reality, though, it is disingenuous to attribute these problems to the "free market". It is like attributing lying to telling the truth because people present lies as the truth. I get the point, that we don't have a free market, but since we don't have a free market it'd be better to say "capitalism" than "free market" when complaining about laws being written by corporations to control markets.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[VGPowerlord]

Even with natural monopolies, you'd at least have competitions in some areas between providers.

Instead, due to government regulation, I'm stuck with Broadstripe Cable because Comcast's coverage area ends 1/2 mile away.

And trust me, if you thought Comcast was bad, you have seen anything yet.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[dgatwood]

AT&T is a bad example because the government subsidized the crap out of the building of those phone lines. Standard Oil, however, is a good example.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Moryath]

AT&T still became a monopoly by bullying the crap out of every other carrier and driving the competition out of business through means that have since been made illegal (such as selling service below-cost until the competition couldn't last, then price-gouging once they had a monopoly in a locality).

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[diamondmagic]

So you're basically implying no matter how rich we get, no matter how productive we are, the existence of a lower class is somehow a bad thing, or at least, is something that can be fixed without making everyone poorer in the process.

How about:

"Inequality isn't something that needs to be 'fixed'. As long as you're not being literally stolen from, you shouldn't be complaining and take advantage what you're offered."

Just like Abraham said

[Dyinobal]

"and that government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations shall not perish from the earth."

Re:Just like Abraham said

[green1]

no, it's "government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations"... why after all would a corporation want to be governed, or have to follow any laws?

Re:Just like Abraham said

[Kyusaku Natsume]

That is an almost direct quote of what the mexican president Vicente Fox said 6 years ago:

"This is a government of the entrepreneurs, by the entrepreneurs, for the entrepreneurs", but entrepreneurs being equal to big corporations because these conservative assholes are doing everything possible to crush small business. You can see how much good this ended for us mexicans. The guy ended putting is signature in a book wrote by republican propagandist Rob Allyn after his term ended, called "Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith and Dreams of a Mexican President". The implementation of this stupid policies is what made that crime is the only news that come to Mexico and that illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States skyrocketed during his term, but the people of Wisconsin are free to chose misery if they want that. What in the fucking hell were they thinking when they put that puppet of the Koch brothers as governor?

Re:Just like Abraham said

[rezalas]

You need to check your history book. The Internet was paid for by the government and slowly allowed to be handed over to corporations over two decades once it was already long established. Many advances (including computers that you claim are corporate gifts) are actually creations paid for by governments (typically for military purposes) and then handed over to corporations over time for civilian use and implementation.

"...Thus, by 1985, Internet was already well established as a technology supporting a broad community of researchers and developers, and was beginning to be used by other communities for daily computer communications. Electronic mail was being used broadly across several communities, often with different systems, but interconnection between different mail systems was demonstrating the utility of broad based electronic communications between people....This process of privately-financed augmentation for commercial uses was thrashed out starting in 1988 in a series of NSF-initiated conferences at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on "The Commercialization and Privatization of the Internet" - and on the "com-priv" list on the net itself.. "

Source: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

Also, claiming that some form of fair competition exists between companies is either a misunderstanding of how modern MSCs (multiple service carrier) operate or a blatant manipulation of the truth to suit a rant. No company can or will attempt to overbuild another MSC in a zone unless one of them is AT&T (in which case you can actually get government grants to over-build them, and money from AT&T at times as well so they look better). Between franchise agreements and city divisions where cable companies will cut a city in half (effectively choosing to "compete" only in certain regions where there really is no competition) customers don't have any semblance of real options.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[Moryath]

What in the fucking hell were they thinking when they put that puppet of the Koch brothers as governor?

Just like most Tea Tardier organizations, you presume too much. You ask what they were thinking, rather than asking if they have enough functioning brain cells to form a coherent thought.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[dpilot]

If those corporations were doing what they should be, I might agree with your sentiment. I see them as falling down on their jobs, and the mechanisms for marketplace corrections have been dismantled.

Corporations ought to be competing with each other to provide the best goods and services to me at the best price. In exchange for doing that, they're entitled to make a profit. The competition is gone, and the profit is coming before the goods and services.

In a scaled-down bad analogy...
Would you rather buy a car from someone who loves cars, wants to study them and design and build the best cars he can, then goes into the car business to fulfill his passion?
Or...
Would you rather buy a car from someone who loves to make money, and sees building cars as a route to that end?

Assuming he can stay in business, I would certainly prefer the former. Current US business is all about the latter.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[imric]

ROFLMAO. So unless we submit to anticompetitive acts by corporate collectives, we will all be "unusable, poorly trained garbage that can not compete in the real world", eh?

"Corporations, large and small, employee people in a competitive environment"

Competitive? Got some news fr you, my sophomoric friend. The only reason there is a competitive environment is due to regulation. That's right. Profit is all about maximizing price and minimizing delivery. Competition minimizes price and maximizes delivery. Maximizing profit means minimizing competition; this is done by either destroying or co-opting your competitor. EVERY, and I mean EVERY time in history where mercantile interests have been able to run free, the people have suffered - the freer the mercantile interest, the worse it gets for the people. Last time in the US we ended up with workers rioting with shotguns, and corporations employing mercenaries to keep the workers in their place.

"Who owns the phone lines, who owns the cable lines? Not you. It is called private property"

Nope. The ROW was taken from the people by the government and given to companies eventually designated 'natural monopolies'. In return for their service, they get considerations like tax breaks. Had to be done that way too, because the people wouldn't sell their land, and no common infrastructure was possible otherwise. In other words, the privilege, the infrastructure you enjoy was due to government regulation, NOT private industry. We'd still be using 19th century technology without government regulation.

"all governmental organizations, that are nothing but a drain on the tax payers pockets"

ROFL the republicans really did a number on your head, didn't they? So - all things should be corporate, forever? Can you think of nothing that should not be regulated by profit? Certainly healthcare/insurance should - it goes with out saying that when you make the most profit by not providing coverage but receiving big premium you get the very best medical service... And no companies would ever think of price-fixing in an unregulated environment. And no corporation would ever poison the land or the sea for the sake of a quick buck in your unregulated, government-free world, would they? ROFL dude, pass that over here, it must be some powerful stuff...

"Viva the Government, for with out them, you would not have that computer you are working on, would be unable to communicate anywhere in the world. you would walk, and live to be about 40, if you were lucky."

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[Kyusaku Natsume]

Sorry, I was under the assumption that voting rights there were restricted to people that weren't brain dead.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[Squiddie]

Yes, I seem to remember that our great corporations and not government were the ones that brought electricity and phone service to rural areas. I mean, it's ridiculous to think that government can ever properly regulate corporations, in spite of all the evidence we have to the contrary.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[Moryath]

You assume a lot in this day and age.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[SleazyRidr]

OT, but when did we switch from calling them teabaggers to calling them Tea Tardiers. The new one makes me think they just run late for everything.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[gmhowell]

I thought Abraham said "God, where you want this killin' done?"

Re:Just like Abraham said

[gmhowell]

OT, but when did we switch from calling them teabaggers to calling them Tea Tardiers. The new one makes me think they just run late for everything.

Methinks it is related to the 'Paultard' sobriquet.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[retchdog]

well, just take the blue pill and believe that removing enough regulations will magically cause the former after some vague idealistic threshold is crossed.

Re:Just like Abraham said

[riverat1]

Since the SCOTUS has declared corporations have personhood what's the difference? People/corporation. They just have more money to spend on free speech than the rest of us.

Actually though, since corporations are created through the laws of governments shouldn't they get down on their knees and worship their creator, the government? Just a thought.

Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[olsmeister]

The provision was inserted at the 11th hour by Republicans after lobbying by companies such as AT&T, claiming that these types of services should be provided by private companies. http://wistechnology.com/articles/8648/ http://wistechnology.com/articles/8665/

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[interkin3tic]

Wait, you're saying the same party that went out of their way to teachers' rights, consistently goes after public education, and is opposed to net neutrality is now going out of their way to screw over universities for no legitimate reason?

I can't even be sarcastic, that's not surprising in the least. It also will not be surprising in the least when democrats fail to effectively stop this and fail to reverse it when they get back in power. Possibly with a little encouragement from AT&T.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[Moryath]

Quite frankly I'm sickened that \. has started leaning so far to the left these days. People here used to understand the free market. They used to believe in competition. They used to believe in freedom.

Then the reality of what right-wingers like you actually meant by "free market", e.g. rape of the middle class for the profit of the robber barons, came to pass.

You know. The raiding of pension funds. The fucking-over of everyone's 401k and other retirement accounts, which were your "replacement" for pensions - a few assholes from Wall Street laughed their way to the bank while the grandparents of the nation got fucked in the ass, thanks the the Retardican Party.

The constant tax cuts to billionaire robber barons while constantly increasing government "fees" on everyday necessities like auto registration, to fuck the middle and lower class every step of the way.

Do I think "total socialism" is the way to go? Of course not. But the laissez-faire, "no regulation", "every man for himself" crap that you assholes push sure as fuck isn't the way to go either.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[elrous0]

You mean make them a private school--with private school tuition rates. Pretty sure the parents of Wisconsin aren't going to be too happy about that.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

Don't pretend they're the same issues at all. Public unions (teachers unions, or gov't worker unions) are inherently evil monopolies. Hey, just like Comcast!

Busting the public unions (which even FDR was for, and he was pretty pro-union in other cases) is a good thing. Destroying competition to AT&T is a bad thing.

Republicans and Democrats each get one of the issues right

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

Republicans cut pensions, Democrats set pension levels to unsustainably high amounts. The sweetheart deals they (Democrats) make with the public employees around here are beyond ridiculous.

Democrats create budget problems. Republicans solve them. Or, depending on your perspective, it's the other way around. Like if you're one of the lifeguards who can retire at 40 on 200k a year.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[Moryath]

Oh please. Do tell, where is "here" for you? What fantasyland?

"Lifeguards who can retire at 50 on 200k a year." Do tell. Pull the other one while you're at it.

Meanwhile, my grandmother worked for 40 years as a WI schoolteacher, her pension is not nearly so robust, and a good 20% of her fixed income goes to paying for her medical bills. She, a hard-working woman who gave years of her life to the education of children, is being demonized by shit-for-brains ignoramuses like yourself and corrupt stooges like Shithead Walker for "breaking the budget."

Give me a fucking break.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[spauldo]

Used to believe in freedom?

Freedom?

OK , you know, I'm sick of hearing this shit. Freedom isn't an economic policy. Socialism is not inherently less free than capitalism - in fact, it's more free, because in a representative government you have at least some influence over the government monopolies. With corporate monopolies, you have no say whatsoever - not even with your pocketbook.

You can't apply free market ideas to natural monopolies. Your only options are to regulate them heavily, nationalize them, or watch the citizenry be forced to bend over and take it. I personally like the second option, because I get to vote for the guy who decides what my service will consist of and how much it will cost. Most governments in the US tend toward the first option.

The only entity with more freedom under the third option is the monopoly itself, and it's most likely a corporation, not a citizen. The only people who benefit there are its shareholders.

So cut out this crap about freedom. It's not about freedom. You're not being forced to work on a collective farm here. You're not losing any of your rights, except the right to use a monopoly to unfairly manipulate the market, which shouldn't be a right anyway.

Now, if you want to consider socialism and its effects on non-monopolies, you can talk about freedom. Wired telecom is, and always will be, just as much a monopoly as water, power, and sewer, and if you choose non-regulated private sector companies to run it, you've thrown your freedom away.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[interkin3tic]

They are the same issue: republicans waging a war against education. In the case of collective bargaining, that wasn't a budgetary measure: the unions had already agreed to have their benefits cut. It was about weakening a political enemy.

Its simplistic to say "all public unions are bad." I see nothing to indicate the balance of power had shifted too far in favor of the workers. FDR's opposition to public unions was how long ago exactly? The situation has changed, and at the very least, he wasn't opposed to public unions because they were major supporters to the Democratic party, which was Walker's reason for busting them.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[jo_ham]

Why isn't the parent post modded +5 funny?

It's clearly an obvious troll with no connection to reality.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[riverat1]

Democrats create budget problems. Republicans solve them.

Yeah, right. If that's true how come the US Debt increases more under Republicans than it does Democrats?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[Bengie]

"What you're saying is that, without government subsidies, WiscNet wouldn't be able to compete with AT&T"

Ummm, no. Even without government subsidies, they're still cheaper and faster. All the subsidies are used for is to help connect rural libraries/etc that can't afford it. If these libraries/schools/etc can't afford WiscNet prices, there's no way they're going to afford the 2x-3x greater AT&T costs.

All this means is more people get a worse education and all of society pays for it.

To be Anti-WiscNet also means to be anti-education and anti-research.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

>>It's clearly an obvious troll with no connection to reality.

Go fuck yourself.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lifeguards-high-pay-riles-apf-3067894082.html

Public wages in California average 25% higher than Texas, after adjusting for COL. Texas doesn't allow public unions.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

>>"Lifeguards who can retire at 50 on 200k a year." Do tell. Pull the other one while you're at it.

Let me Google that for you, asshat:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lifeguards-high-pay-riles-apf-3067894082.html

>>Meanwhile, my grandmother worked for 40 years as a WI schoolteacher

That's why I said California, not WI. The public unions are out of control here.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

>>Yeah, right. If that's true how come the US Debt increases more under Republicans than it does Democrats?

In particular I was talking about state budgets.

Take a look in particular at whether red or blue states are more likely to have balanced budgets. (Actually balanced budgets, not faux-balanced.)

http://statebudgetwatch.org/50_State_Final.pdf

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

What? No snarky reply?

It sucks, doesn't it, when you call someone a troll but it turns out they're right?

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[jo_ham]

The fact you were waiting around and checking back on me for a snarky reply proves my point that you're trolling.

You just got impatient and showed your hand.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

>>The fact you were waiting around and checking back on me for a snarky reply proves my point that you're trolling.

In other words:
"How dare these people use citations and facts to destroy my carefully arranged prejudices??"
-jo_ham

Heh, no, I was just amused by how deafening silence always greets those that win an argument on here. I was doubly amused by you calling the truth a troll.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[jo_ham]

No, not that at all - you talk about "lifeguards" as if it's all of them - the 200k (in total benefits, not base salary or pension) is for only two chiefs (as per your link), and is not the norm. Of the 13 employees, the two bosses earned 200k in combined salary, benefits and overtime.

I do not see how this invalidates my point that you don;t live in reality, and are simply posting as an anti-public-employee troll. Has it occurred to you that they actually *earned* their pay? And that "200k" is not simply "a lifeguard" as your troll post attempts to suggest (also note that your own cite specifically mentions this much further down from the headline).

The anti-union, anti-middle-class, anti-public-worker propaganda train has done a bang up job convincing people that unions and public workers live the life of riley smoking hand rolled cigars with their feet up while the hard working private workers are struggling to buy spam. It's just not so, and a single case of two lifeguard battalion chiefs with combined benefits that total 200k each won't change that. Especially trying to pass them off as "life guards" to cover their actual roles.

It really wasn't worth the effort to type all that since you're clearly trolling, but bravo! You managed to get me to engage. You win Mr Troll.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

The article talks about half of them earning more than 100k a year. Try to tell me that is a reasonable salary for a lifeguard, with a straight face.

Also, tell me that retiring at 90% pay with 30 years of service is also perfectly reasonable.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[jo_ham]

So now you're talking about 100k? Which is it? 200k or 100k?

The article also mentions that it's a competitive salary for the job they do (note they're not simply sitting in the tower in shorts working on their tans).

So really your argument isn't about public sector workers, it's that you think professional life guards are paid too much.

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[ShakaUVM]

>>So now you're talking about 100k? Which is it? 200k or 100k?

There are people making 200k, that get to retire at 50 with 90% pay. This is too high.
50% of the lifeguards make over 100k, that also get to retire at 50 with 90% pay. This is also too high.

>>The article also mentions that it's a competitive salary for the job they do

Yeah, no shit.

>>So really your argument isn't about public sector workers, it's that you think professional life guards are paid too much.

No, my argument is about all public sector workers. The average salary for parole officers and corrections officers exceeds 100k as well. In Texas, which is only about 15% lower than us in terms of cost of living, these jobs average 40k-50k in salary. The difference? They have public unions for them here in CA, but TX bans public unions, as they should.

Lobbying

[Anonymous Coward]

Used to be called corruption.

Unfortunately, the population of a country always wait until it's too late to act and then you get a revolution.

Re:Lobbying

[JockTroll]

A revolution over internet access? Surely you jest.

Re:Lobbying

[Squiddie]

That only works when there is a big shock to the people. Those in power have learned to make the process gradual. In Germany, no one would have thought at first that they were on the road to fascism. They thought about being patriotic, and many even believed that up to the end of the war. No, the won't be a revolution. Every tiny injustice is seen by people as a coming revolution. They are waiting for the big shock, but there won't be one. Don't wait for millions to rise up with you. Some one has to start and it has to start somewhere before it's too late.

The GOP's bright idea

[ThatsNotPudding]

Privatize everything.

Except brutality and suffering; those will be available to everyone camped outside of the enclaves.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Black Parrot]

Privatize everything.

Except brutality and suffering; those will be available to everyone camped outside of the enclaves.

There has been a concerted war on the public interest in Wisconsin (and a few other states) for the past several months. IIRC, Wisconsin is where three legislators are up for recall elections, three more have the signatures filed but not validated yet, and steaming mad voters are counting the days until they can start a recall effort on the governor too.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Nine legislators are up for recall, Six Republicans and Three Democrats

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[bzipitidoo]

Not quite.

Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.

That's the 2008 Financial Crisis in a nutshell. Then hold the mess up as an example of how bankrupt, stupid, and evil government and socialist organizations such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are. Blame it all on the policies of the Clinton and Carter administrations. Mock GM for now being "Government Motors". Crow about how great private enterprise is. Brazenly ignore the boatload of implicit contradictions, omissions, and lies in such statements.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[HikingStick]

I lived in Wisconsin in the early 1990s. The problem we had was that the big Internet service providers/communities/BBS services were only providing dial up numbers in the major cities. If you lived in the outlying areas, you got nailed with inter-LATA calling fees that priced calls higher than long-distance calls. I remember when groups in and around the Richland County area got together--the communities, the utility cooperatives, and the local two-year University of Wisconsin campus--to help bring local Internet access to the area. There were those at the time who complained that such groups shouldn't be providing services that should be provided in the free market, but the problem was that the free market providers didn't want to provide service there because it was just too costly for them.

Such networks were a boon to local businesses and consumers alike, allowing many to have Internet service who otherwise would not have had it.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[NeutronCowboy]

I wish you were being sarcastic. But at least one GOP candidate has made that his official election platform: Pawlenty, through his "Google test", wants to eliminate all government services that are offered by private company. And since everything under the sun is being offered by a private company, even national defense would be outsourced under that platform. I'm sure he'll backpedal on that so quickly he'll appear to walk on air, but still - Republicans are the only ones who offer up such insanity.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[bwcbwc]

I think you left out a couple of steps:

1. Privatize everything
2. ???
3. PROFIT!

The beauty of this scheme is that step 2 is irrelevant when it comes to privatizing government services. Just about any path you take leads to #3.

Make public schools ineffective by cutting the funding.
Privatize the schools.
Make a profit on government vouchers for private schools that are just as ineffective, if not worse.

Make the prisons overcrowded by throwing uneducated kids in jail on a three strikes count.
Privatize the prisons.
Make a profit by cutting health and nutrition services to the prisoners.

Make the courts ineffective by cutting funding and flooding the docket with charges against uneducated kids and internet downloaders.
No time for lawsuits against privatized service providers???
Profit on cost savings for liability insurance, lawyers and other items.

Republicans in Wisconsin are obviously soft on crime. Education (and therefore education funding) mitigates future needs for prison funding. Despite what the tea party would have you think, there is a role for government services in US society. Public education is one of the essential government services, and internet service is a requirement for public education.

Republicans always like to say that the public sector is too inefficient, and services should be privatized to improve efficiency. What they don't mention is that privatization never leads to improvement in services over the long term. Basically, the extra efficiency (if it exists) in the private sector, is consumed by profit taking. Once the initial inefficiencies are ironed out, the extra money goes as profit to the service provider, not for service improvement. Then thanks to the accounting principle of compounded growth rates, the only way for the privatized service to succeed as a company is to raise prices. Government services are not growth industries unless the population is growing dramatically.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[scorp1us]

Yes, it is ok to privatize everything. However there needs to be one conditions unlimited competition. Too often, the competition is either gobbled up or the barrier to entry is raised (thanks to lobbying)

I've always like the idea of for utilities services, that the service area is divided up and whomever services the population the best gets awarded a larger art of the pie, with a set 15-30% in contention each year. Example: DMV services. The state maintains the master database, but private enterprise can provide the same services. Every year a DMV office is up for whomever performs the best - lest wait time, lowest surcharge (on state fees) and they get to have an additional DMV office. Everyone wins. (The surcharge is supposedly less than the existing cost for the DMV running their own offices)

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Moryath]

Uhm.. the Retardican plan is simpler than that.

1. Privatize everything
2. Take kickbacks from the Robber Barons you just sold everything to
3. PROFIT!

No question marks needed.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Black Parrot]

Oddly enough, the petitions in the three Democrats' cases turned out to be fraudulent - the Republicans sent in someone previously convicted of felony election fraud and had them passing around petitions claiming it was to recall a Republican state senator, to "support schools", "support Indians", or to "support Democrats", then appended the signatures to their "recall petition" to recall the Democrats instead.

Always nice to see the Greed Over People part doing what they do best: FRAUD.

Republicans like to accuse Democrats of stealing elections, but whenever you see mention of someone who has actually been to prison for election fraud it's almost always a Republican.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Squiddie]

Let's not be blind here. The Repubs are worse, but even the Democrats give in to stupid policies like that. We call it lobbying, but we all know that it's just bribery.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Bartles]

I've lived in outlying areas of Madison my entire life. I was never charged anything other than long-distance for connecting to a BBS. Der Saugen Grube FTW. (608) 274-7483.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Yaa 101]

The same parties (like Morgan Stanley etc...) pulled that one off in Asia 12 years ago and in Russia before that and now they are doing it in South of Europe.
1. make sure that governments invest in your real estate ponzi scheme(s) (build stuff that noone will use).
2. let the scheme(s) collapse.
3. make sure that the IMF gives a loan to these gorvernments to pay for the damages.
4. make sure the government use the loan to pay you off.
5. pull all that money out of that country.
6. stick up your middle finger to the people of that country while taking the profits and seeing that country go down.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[trevelyon]

I love this discussion. It goes back and forth again and again. I wonder how long it will take for people to realise that BOTH Republicans and Democrats are inherently corrupt. With the current structure of both parties almost guaranteeing that neither will be close to free from corporate interests. They've even locked up the presidential debates after chasing off the former hosts due to too much political shenanigans. Remember seeing any independents since Perot in the debates?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates#Debate_sponsorship

In short BOTH parties receive considerable funding from rich, private interests. BOTH parties serve the sources of their revenue streams.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989304575503933125159928.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052102513.html

Their will be no change in the status quo since there is no incentive to change. Both parties get their cut and a bunch of us nameless, faceless folk get screwed. The only real change will come from transferring the power to other parties. Almost any other party at this point will be better than these two but I think the Libertarians will really give the system a good cleaning. IMO they are also the best chance of holding some of these corrupt politicians to task for the damage done by their greed.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[Sparrow1492]

Yeah, I like the Libertarians too, but the chances of them getting a foothold are pretty much zero at this point.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[trevelyon]

That was the point I was trying to make there. Nobody can get a foothold with everyone voting Republican and Democrat. Basically, if you're happy with the current political situation vote for a Republican OR a Democrat. If you want real change vote for anyone else. Who knows maybe the populace of the country will wake up before unemployment hits 20%. Then again they'll probably just change the way unemployment is calculated again so it never will hit 20%.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[HikingStick]

In the Madison area, if I remember correctly, many of the neighboring communities had local calling packs that included the Madison area. Once you got further out--Spring Green, Gotham, Muscoda, Richland Center, Boaz, Viola, Readstown, et.al.--you calling inter-LATA. Same area code, but a huge difference in the per-minute cost.

I live in rural Minnesota now, and the same thing still applies to inter-LATA calls--they are still more expensive than long distance. That's why I'm glad our cellular carrier doesn't care whether calls are local or long distanace. Any time we need to dial inter-LATA or long distance, we use our cell phones.

Well you see...

[GlobalMind]

AT&T won't provide the services or will do so at triple the prices paid now. This is also a very convenient way of shorting the school system what they need, and thus have more ammo to go after them for not providing what our kids need. Thus making schools the root of all evil again. Most voters will go along with it, and the GOP in Wisconsin gets more of what it wants.

Re:Well you see...

[Simon80]

In a world where cheaper overseas workers are competing with you for jobs, the only way that Americans can maintain their incomes and good labor conditions is by keeping their skills ahead of the cheaper workers in these other countries. One way to do this is to have a world class education system, which benefits everyone in your society because of a real trickle-down effect from the skilled workers. Or you can cut off your education system, and watch your economy continue to tank over the next couple of decades as even the skilled labor moves to other countries and you guys are left with fewer jobs. What you call socialism, the rest of the entire world calls good governance.

Re:Well you see...

[Moryath]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you cro-magnon man... aka your average everyday Tea Tardier.

Re:Well you see...

[Issarlk]

Or you can think on the even longer term and let your country collapse to third world levels so it becomes a good candidate for sweatshops and get employment.

Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is just taking after his friend the former "governor" of Minnesota, Teflon Tim Pawlenty. Teflon Tim at one point wanted to move to dissolve the public transportation system (buses, primarily) and instead give waivers to poor people to buy used cars so they could get around on their own. You get the idea - put money in the hands of businesses, and ... whatever. Of course, he never said what he was going to do for the people who used public transportation because they were legally blind.

But either way, Walker is just trying to keep himself in view. His union-busting went well enough for his purposes, now he's on to frying other fish. He figures if his friend the nonsticky one can run for the GOP presidential nomination, he can too.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Walker handled the country like he's handled Milwaukee County and is handling Wisconsin, we could look forward to becoming the United States of America Sponsored by BP(tm). This guy's given straight-up hand outs to corporations that donated to his campaign and then claimed we needed to end unions to make up the sudden shortfall. He's the most blatantly corrupt corporatist I've seen in politics yet.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

If Walker handled the country like he's handled Milwaukee County and is handling Wisconsin, we could look forward to becoming the United States of America Sponsored by BP(tm)

As opposed to our current status as The United States of America Owned Outright by BlueCross/BlueSheild?

This guy's given straight-up hand outs to corporations that donated to his campaign

I'm not sure how that differs form our current POTUS, or the one before him, or the one before him, or the one before him, or any other POTUS I can think of ever.

and then claimed we needed to end unions to make up the sudden shortfall

Unions are the universal boogeyman. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the GOP presidential contenders tries to blame them for 9/11 before the primary season is over.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[MozeeToby]

His union-busting went well enough for his purposes

If WI laws allowed it, he'd be facing a recall vote along with the 6 Republican senators that are already being recalled. And I'd be shocked if he doesn't face a recall when he becomes eligible for one in January. He pissed a lot of people off and if his goal was to weaken support for the unions he failed miserably. A lot of people who started out against the unions watched the unions agree to a pay cut, a benefits cut, and even a temporary moratorium on collective bargaining. There are people angry with the Democratic senators for their walk out, but even that anger isn't directed at the Unions. In the end, it was the unions who looked reasonable; while the Democrats looked petty and weak and the Republicans looked like card carrying villains.

I think he'd be hard pressed to explain his behavior on a national stage to anyone other than anti-union Republicans. Not to mention that there are about 100k people in WI that have shown themselves ready and willing to take time off from work to stand in the literally freezing rain just to show their displeasure for him. Sometimes the "Would never vote for" column is just as important as the "Would vote for" column in polling, because it shows how active and engaged people would be to someone who is opposing him.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[silas_moeckel]

There is something wrong with getting rid of buses? Large gridlocked car less city's sure but the rest. Who do I have to vote for to have this happen?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[gknoy]

What sort of public transit do you propose for people who are legally unable to drive, due to age (old or young), disease, or blindness?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[bryan1945]

Rickshaws?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

There is something wrong with getting rid of buses? Large gridlocked car less city's sure but the rest.

After the government buys them their used car, who pays for the gas and insurance?

While we are on the subject. Why is the political party that's supposedly against handouts the same party that promotes "vouchers" other than it's obviously harder for companies to make money off of poaching the poor if they already have what they need from the government.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

A lot of people who started out against the unions watched the unions agree to a pay cut, a benefits cut, and even a temporary moratorium on collective bargaining

Sadly that doesn't matter to many people. The unions have become the new multipurpose boogeyman for any number of groups and causes. Go take a look at the recent story hear about an Apple Store employee who wanted to form a union, and look at how many slashdot people jumped up to bash unions in response.

I think he'd be hard pressed to explain his behavior on a national stage to anyone other than anti-union Republicans.

There are a lot of people in this country with strong anti-union feelings. And there are plenty of people who could be convinced to feel the same way as well. Explaining this to enough people to win the GOP nomination is trivial.

Besides, with our current conservative POTUS in office, the republicans have to go even further to the right in order to make any distinction between what they want and what Obama has already done. Anyone who isn't rabidly anti-union will be labelled as "soft left' as the kindest.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

You are also overlooking those who for any of a variety of good reasons opt not to drive, or those who are legally forbidden from driving (repeat drunk offenders amongst others).

Of course, public safety always takes a back seat to profit.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Reverand Dave]

I'm not sure how that differs form our current POTUS, or the one before him, or the one before him, or the one before him, or any other POTUS I can think of ever.[Citation needed]

I'd like to see a specific example of this that wasn't a throwback to the neo-con abortion we just emerged from.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

There is something wrong with getting rid of buses? Large gridlocked car less city's sure but the rest. Who do I have to vote for to have this happen?

There's plenty wrong. But nonetheless, if you want to get rid of buses, subways, trains, and anything else that resembles public transportation, you have your chance this year. Go vote for Teflon Tim Pawlenty, the man who was - on paper, anyways - the governor of MN for 8 years. He's been running for president since at least 2006, but this year he finally got around to declaring his candidacy.

He'd love to have your vote. If you find the right guy, in the right back room, before the right primary, you might be able to make some money off of it, too.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[vlm]

I think he'd be hard pressed to explain his behavior ... Sometimes the "Would never vote for" column is just as important as the "Would vote for" column in polling

His idea of "winning" probably does not match ours.

From a purely drama-queenie, attention grabbing point of view, Palin, Hlllary, and their male equivalent Walker, ARE and have been incredibly successful. They live for the Oprah interview and the press fawning all over them, and if they don't have to bother with the responsibilities of governing, well that's great, more time to stir up controversy...

You have to realize that both the Ds and Rs are incredibly weak here, with the exception of Feingold who was a black sheep in his own party of sheeple. The reason there's no one but 3rd rate B-grade hacks on both sides, is because that's unfortunately the best both sides have... Its very much like the end of "atlas shrugged" where have all the real leaders gone?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[vlm]

What sort of public transit do you propose for people who are legally unable to drive, due to age (old or young), disease, or blindness?

The taxi companies that donated to the election campaign of the politician suggesting the government spend money on taxis?

Its funny watching people try to rationalize simple shakedowns.

Bringing it back to the story, why did the same governor go after certain public servant unions and not others? No deep philosophical reasons, just look at the donation records. The folks who didn't cough up enough dough have had it made perfectly clear what'll happen if they don't.

A permanently declining economy inevitably means permanently declining bribes... That's why this is all boiling up in recent years. Some politicians believed that "a rising tide lifts all boats". Some didn't. Doesn't particularly matter. But ALL politicians seem to think that a falling tide should not affect their bribes... Thus the drama.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

yes... put money in the hands of poor people. What a radical concept.

OK, so you want to give poor people money to buy used cars. If you give Joe-Minimum-Wage, who currently rides the bus to work, $2k to buy a car, how long will he be able to afford insurance on the car? How about gas and parking (which he also didn't need to pay while riding the bus)? What if the car breaks down and he can't get to work?

What if Joe was a chronic drinker who liked to get plastered after work every night? He was getting home safely on the bus, and now you want him to drive home instead?

all I see is a gang of public sector workers walking away with a big bag of money

Yeah, I know so many wealthy bus drivers... Man, I don't know what they do with all that money they are paid! And they get to drive a 40+ foot vehicle all day for work? They should pay US for the privilege!

If mass transit can be provided by non-profits or by a business... more power to them. But they'll have to get every single penny from the people giving their cash or using their vouchers.

Actually the largest public transit system in MN - where Teflon Tim was supposedly governor - was funded mostly by fares. And they were non-profit. People could opt to go by taxi instead, of course, but they would generally prefer a bus if possible.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Opportunist]

where have all the real leaders gone?

Into business, where they actually get to make decisions, i.e. where they get to buy politicians instead of just being bought.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

Thank you for making it clear to me who the candidate with a working thought process is

Let me get this "thought process" straight, then:

----------

Helping people buy a house who were previously rejected for mortgages = bad, bad, bad, bad, bad

Giving people money to buy a used car who cannot currently afford to drive = infinite win of excellence?

-----------

I'm not sure I am familiar with this new definition of "thought process", really.

Ha, that didn't go the way you expected it, did it?

Actually, it did. I expected that only people with no grip on reality would think it to be a good idea to give used cars to people who cannot afford to drive.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

You opt not to drive, you are opting to figure out what to do to get around.

What if you opt not to drive, because you currently have a reliable transportation system available to you that allows you to get to where you need to go without driving? If you took that system away, wouldn't you be taking freedom away from those people who made that choice?

It's not up to other citizens to solve your problem.

If there is a solution in place that someone can use, and they opt to use it, how are they counting on other citizens to solve their problem? They didn't ask the system to be built for them, they worked an existing system into their lives voluntarily.

If your county demolished the road in front of your house, because they felt that "It's not up to other citizens to solve your problem", wouldn't you be a bit upset over it? You likely bought your house expecting that the street in front of it - which of course you help pay for - would be there for you to use when you need it. If someone intentionally locates themselves in a place where they can use public transportation, and you take it away from them, you're doing the same thing as the county demolishing the road in front of your house and replacing it with an 8 foot deep lagoon.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[romanval]

So what do you do about people who are physically incapable of driving?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

So what do you do about people who are physically incapable of driving?

Used cars for them, too, of course! They can carpool with the blind people, the chronic drinkers, the children, and the elderly! We don't need buses when we have so many used car dealers!

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[StikyPad]

I have no problem with unions as long as workers aren't forced to join them. My last job was a union shop, but I wouldn't join because we were supposed to pay into a strike fund (80% of "dues") which we could never draw from by definition since we were prohibited by law from striking. Sorry, but I'm not going to pay for someone else's insurance when it won't potentially benefit me in the least. Ended up getting laid off from that job along with all the other union employees too, so a whole lot of good their $120/mo did them.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

I'm not sure how that differs form our current POTUS, or the one before him, or the one before him, or the one before him, or any other POTUS I can think of ever.[Citation needed]

I'd like to see a specific example of this that wasn't a throwback to the neo-con abortion we just emerged from.

It is not clear if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me there...

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[SydShamino]

And thus you have opposed every single road improvement project, right? Since it's sure as hell not anyone else's problem to solve your traffic woes either.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[elrous0]

At least with a government program, we can make sure that not *all* the money is traded away for crack and booze.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Dachannien]

Actually, he wanted to offer subsidies to nonprofits that would give rides to people while the transit union was on strike. Blind people already were in a pickle what with the buses not running. The plan apparently didn't go through, however, and the strike lasted a month and a half.

Not the best source, but at least it's a source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269165/pawlenty-s-transit-strike-katrina-trinko

If you're thinking of something else, you should probably provide a source.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[cdrguru]

You can't run a public transit system that caters to 1-2% of the population and only serves that number. It doesn't work without massive funding from the government, which people have consistently voted against.

When I was in Chicago in the 1960s the buses and electric trains there had plenty of riders and ran 24x7. Unfortunately, the result of a lot of government programs created the "inner city" mess that everyone should be familar with. It was no longer safe to ride public transit, so if you didn't absolutely have to, you did not. Ridership dropped. Fares increased because of this, so ridership dropped some more. They ended the 24x7 service because there were too few people to make it practical. The removed station attendents and got rid of every single person in the system they could do without. The trains became less and less safe to ride.

The end result of all of this is the train routes have been reconfigured, stations closed and buses cut way back. It is now something that is usable during rush hour and absolutely nobody goes anywhere near unless they have to. There have been attempts at bond issues for funding the CTA and every single one has failed. It is viewed that if it can't survive as an independent company, it shouldn't survive at all.

In other places rails that were used for trains have been torn up and the land used for something else. The rail lines aren't coming back - the land is tied up now. That decision was made in the 1950s and has just finally gotten around to being noticed.

End result is public transit is pretty much dead in the US. What was needed was massive government investment in the 1940s and 1950s to offset the investment in roads. It wasn't done, so public transit became less and less relevant to the people in the US. Sure there might be some people that it would be nice if public transit worked for, but they are far too few to support the system. It would now take the government spending billions of dollars each year in every major city to have a functional public transit system and for the most part it would be empty - except for the 1-2% that absolutely require it. It would still be a haven for crime and unsafe, but that is how we seemingly want to have inner cities.

You might be OK with that level of government spending, but apparently very few voters are. I suppose an alternative might be to tear up the highways that have been built over the last 60 years or so and force people to use the unsafe, crime-infested public transit system. It might get enough ridership to reduce the crime level then. But it would take that kind of thing to make it work. And that would cost hundreds of billions.

By the way, the US is broke and unless China wants to sponsor public transit in the US (maybe some nice Chinese buses?) we're not spending anything on public transit.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[DamnStupidElf]

You opt to drive, and the State and Federal Government (and your fellow citizen taxpayers) better bust their asses building roads to connect your house to your workplace, Walmart, and the beer store. WIth State workers who are legally prohibited from unionizing, to boot.

I like the way you think.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Bartles]

The concept of a mass transit system that doesn't use public money is just incomprehensible to you, isn't it?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Bartles]

How much money have unions given to Wisconsin Democrats in the last 10 years? So now the State collects dues for the public sector unions by force at cost to the taxpayers. The Unions take that money, line their pockets and then give the remainder back to Democrats. Sounds like a fair system to me.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[silas_moeckel]

But little blind Timmy needs another handout. Were have working prototypes of autonomous cars right now. Want to make things better make a autonomous only lane and let it go 100+ mph. For as much as I like driving I would love a faster way to work.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[damn_registrars]

Actually, he wanted to offer subsidies to nonprofits that would give rides to people while the transit union was on strike. Blind people already were in a pickle what with the buses not running. The plan apparently didn't go through, however, and the strike lasted a month and a half.

That is actually a different situation than the one I had in mind.

Some may recall that one of Teflon Tim's closest friends during his first run for governor was David Strom, of the "Taxpayer's League" (one of the most ironic names ever). When he was running, and establishing himself as governor, he was pretty well doing whatever Strom wanted. Strom himself wanted the state government to buy used cars for everyone who used public transportation, so it could be shut down completely - I'm pretty sure that was before the strike ever occurred.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Issarlk]

Nothing I guess. The parent probably is ok to let them die in abject poverty. It's the law of the jungle, only übermensches with the strongest genes get to reproduce and live.

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[Kyusaku Natsume]

Isn't cheaper to just put a bullet through blind Tommy's head and expect that if anyone gets blind by an accident do the same? We can let die people that suffer strokes or crash their cars, after all, intensive care units are too expensive too.

Campaign donations

[Anonymous Coward]

THis makes perfect sense when you figure that ATT is set to profit big time from this legislation and they were/are a huge campaign contributor to Scott (I'm a Douche Bag) Walker. For those of you following along, this is the second time he has done this, the first was a 23m Fed giveback that would have replaced the sub par Badgernet service.

An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[macwhizkid]

This is a very nicely written and researched article, which, unfortunately, only shows in detail one horrific case study of what could soon be a widespread occurrence if the big telecom corps get what they want: to go after the government/educational market (now that the consumer market is completely saturated) and offer them half the service at twice the price.

Organizations like WiscNet provide a fantastic public service, and the notion of dismantling them for private industry to make a buck is just reprehensible. I'm from Michigan, not Wisconsin, but I could very easily see this happening here, as we have the same issues in play: Merit Network, a non-profit co-op founded for the same reasons as WiscNet, provides Internet access to almost all the schools in the state. It would be a huge loss for our corrupt legislature to squeeze them out (never underestimate the evil of the Michigan Legislature, look up the Michigan "promise scholarship" if you don't believe me). I'm sure other states are in similar situations.

My dad's a public school teacher, and my Internet access growing up was through Merit's dialup, which they offered free to teachers at the time. Unlike most commercial offerings back in the mid-90s (or even now) there was no monthly time allotment or bandwidth cap. I shudder to think how my experiences building web sites and learning to code would have changed had AT&T run that system. I do biomed research now, and I'm posting this from a Merit network connection that we use to collaborate with other labs across the country. Try doing that on a 250GB monthly cap.

Hey Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association: Go to hell, and take your bandwidth caps with you.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[MightyMartian]

actually this should have happened years ago. WiscNet and the like are nothing but socialist organizations living off the taxpayers. It is about time that they join the real world and face the financial realities of real life. Possible the cry babies here should realize that public employees of all types, but exspecially teachers are overpaid and under worked. They work in a socialist cocoon where they never have to compete for jobs and have come to think of their special perks as mandatory. It is time to get the educations systems hand out of the tax payers pocket as much as possible. live in the real world. to paraphrase your last comment, "hey socialist, go to hell and get your hand out of my pocket".

Brought to you by the Committee to Elect Ron Paul as Pope in 2012

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[romanval]

I think we should go further-- let's replace all the roads with private toll roads. Let's also replace all police with private security. And if you don't subscribe to a private fire department service, they'll gladly sit idle while your house burns to the ground.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[Grishnakh]

As the friend and niece of teachers, I can tell you that first off - they are underpaid and overworked. My aunt makes 25k a year which for a family of 4 puts them at about 11k under the poverty line for the US. She's been in her position for 3 years now and just had to worry about possible lay-off because of budget cuts.

I don't buy this. This is one of those situations where you need to "vote with your feet".

According to , teachers get much better pay than you state. For instance, teachers in Georgia (not a high COL state) get $34,442 for starting salary, and $48,300 average. MI, PA, OH, and TX are right below them. Tennessee pays an average of $42,537, and as someone who grew up there, I know that it's a dirt-cheap place to live (esp. Knoxville where I grew up).

What crappy state does your Aunt live in? North Dakota, Wisconsin, or Montana? Those are the only three that even start at $25k. Every other state pays more (some just a little, most a lot).

Finally, why on earth is your aunt trying to support a family of 4 on a teacher's salary? What is her husband doing? Sitting on his ass?

If you want to have a big family with kids, then it's your job to find a profession that pays for luxury. Everyone knows teachers don't make a lot of money in the USA, so it's a job for wives to be a supplement to their husbands' income (or vice versa). It's not a job for a primary breadwinner.

You can complain that it shouldn't be that way, and your theoretical arguments may be quite sensible, however if you point to someone that has already chosen this path, knowing how bad it'd be, then I have no sympathy, especially when it's easy to find better paying teaching jobs in other states. Tell her to move her ass to Alaska: teachers get $38,657 in starting pay there, plus they get a check from the government for oil revenues. Or better yet, move to another country: according to the first comment on that page above, teachers in Australia get $56k right out of college (last I checked, AUD was pretty much at parity with USD).

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[drsmithy]

Or better yet, move to another country: according to the first comment on that page above, teachers in Australia get $56k right out of college (last I checked, AUD was pretty much at parity with USD).

The AUD is actually higher, but pretty much everything costs (at least) twice as much as it does in the USA, so you'd be no better off.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[Grishnakh]

I don't know that I buy that. Foreign-manufactured goods generally cost about the same everywhere, so I seriously doubt it costs much more to buy a computer or big-screen TV or a car in Australia than it does in America. Housing is generally the biggest difference place-to-place, and what I've seen of Australia is that housing is really expensive there for some odd reason. However, there's more to your daily budget than housing.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[drsmithy]

I don't know that I buy that. Foreign-manufactured goods generally cost about the same everywhere, so I seriously doubt it costs much more to buy a computer or big-screen TV or a car in Australia than it does in America.

Well, it does. Cars range from 50% (for cheap Japanese vehicles like the Mazda3) to 150% (for European luxury cars like a BMW 550) more expensive. TVs are "only" about 30% more an average, except at the high end where it's more like 100%.

Housing is generally the biggest difference place-to-place, and what I've seen of Australia is that housing is really expensive there for some odd reason. However, there's more to your daily budget than housing.

Housing is expensive because Australia's real estate market has not yet had its crash. However, that's really only true of house buyers - rents have increased roughly in line with historical norms (since rent is actually limited by income, rather than bank lending policies).

Food here is also about twice as much - a significant (and unavoidable) part of any budget. Utilities (electricity, power, etc) are in the same boat, as are clothes and, well, like I said, pretty much everything.

I've just moved from the US to Australia. The cost of living is _significantly_ higher, even in a relatively "lower cost" city like Brisbane. I would need to be earning at least 50% more to get close to the same lifestyle I had in the US.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[Grishnakh]

Cars range from 50% (for cheap Japanese vehicles like the Mazda3)

Holy crap, you're right about cars. I've been looking at getting a low-end Volvo lately, which would cost me about $25k base and $30k nicely optioned, and Volvo's Australian website quotes me a "drive away price" of $42k! This isn't saying anything about options either. That's conservatively a 40% increase, maybe more.

What the hell is the problem down there? Is it just because the market is much smaller and far away from everything, or do they just charge more because they can (like in Canada)?

I wonder how much it'd cost for an Australian to simply buy a car in the USA and have it shipped there (assuming he doesn't mind the driver's seat being on the opposite side)? I'd suggest getting one shipped from the UK, but I just looked that up and it wasn't much better there, but it seems to only be about a 25% increase, but I guess that's still a lot better than a 50% increase.

I wonder if having RHD cars is hurting them. For an American or European automaker of higher-end cars, their only RHD markets are the UK (pop. 62 million) and Australia/NZ (pop. 26.5 million). These numbers are pretty small compared to the North American (and South American too though they probably don't buy many high-end cars) and continental European markets. There's also Japan, but I don't think many American or European cars are sold there (esp. not American, and probably only very high-end European cars sell much there). If Australia switched to LHD cars, they wouldn't need their own special models, and automakers could sell them basically the exact same cars sold in the USA and Europe, without having to charge them extra for having different interiors, different headlights, etc. It's not like it couldn't be done either; it wasn't that long ago that Sweden (or was it Finland?) switched from LHD to RHD, including changing the directions of all the roads.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[drsmithy]

What the hell is the problem down there? Is it just because the market is much smaller and far away from everything, or do they just charge more because they can (like in Canada)?

A certain amount of "because they can" (wages are higher here on average as well, after all) but also I believe because there's only one or two top-level distributors/importers in the country (ie: little competition). There is also a degree of simple protectionism (taxes applied to imports).

I wonder how much it'd cost for an Australian to simply buy a car in the USA and have it shipped there (assuming he doesn't mind the driver's seat being on the opposite side)?

Broadly speaking, it can't be done. To register a LHD vehicle in Australia requires it to be very old and/or of historical value. If you imported a remotely modern LHD car, you would need to have it converted to RHD. Having lived in Europe for a few years, witnessed people driving cars "on the wrong side", and done it myself, I don't have a problem with this. Driving a RHD car in a LHD country (or vice versa) is dangerous.

You would also need to have it brought up to spec with Australian vehicle standards (almost certainly costing more than you would save). Further, if it's a vehicle that's actually sold locally, or that you have owned for less than 12 months while living overseas, import duties are applied so it ends up costing as much as (if not more than) the local version anyway. Finally, thanks to numerous people rorting the personal imports system to resell vehicles, ex-pats are now only allowed to import one vehicle every five years before the import duties start kicking in regardless.

Basically, unless you're looking at a particular unique or expensive vehicle, and/or you haven't personally owned while living overseas it for at least a year before importing it, it's not (even close to being) worth importing a car.

Importing from the UK is somewhat better because you avoid the need for a LHD->RHD conversion, but the import duties still kick in if the vehicle doesn't fall under the personal imports scheme (ie: owned it for 12+ months while living overseas).

I have numerous friends living in the UK and have seriously considered buying them a vehicle to own for 12 months, importing back to Australia and then having it "sold" to me (though this only works cost-wise for more expensive vehicles - I was eyeballing a BMW M5), but a) it requires all the money up front, b) I'd have to wait for 12 months and c) could become an ugly situation.

Other RHD countries are a large chunk of southern Africa, India, New Zealand and a decent chunk of the SW Pacific. However, I struggle to believe the LHD/RHD factor makes a significant (if any) difference in price. Firstly because the volume of vehicles going to RHD markets, while smaller, is hardly trivial, secondly because of modern design and manufacturing capabilities and thirdly because the vast, vast majority of vehicle components are going to be identical between LHD and RHD models anyway. Finally, even if Australia switched to LHD, the vehicles would still need to be built to Australia's vehicle design regulations (which I expect is where the bulk of design and manufacturing cost difference goes), so you still wouldn't be able to just import any random car and drive it off the dock.

HOWEVER, the overriding issue here is not so much that Australia is massively expensive in terms of cost of living (though it's certainly the highest it's probably been, ever, that will change as the real estate market crashes/deflates over the next few years), it's that the USA is incredibly cheap compared to the rest of the world. There's a reason lots of Europeans come on annual shopping trips to the USA.

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[Grishnakh]

Broadly speaking, it can't be done. To register a LHD vehicle in Australia requires it to be very old and/or of historical value. If you imported a remotely modern LHD car, you would need to have it converted to RHD.
You would also need to have it brought up to spec with Australian vehicle standards (almost certainly costing more than you would save). Further, if it's a vehicle that's actually sold locally, or that you have owned for less than 12 months while living overseas, import duties are applied so it ends up costing as much as (if not more than) the local version anyway. Finally, thanks to numerous people rorting the personal imports system to resell vehicles, ex-pats are now only allowed to import one vehicle every five years before the import duties start kicking in regardless.

So suppose you're a US Citizen moving to Australia for work; what's the deal there? Assuming you have a car you've owned for a few years, do you still have to have it converted (which sounds like a very costly proposition for the parts needed, even if it's a model that was made specifically to be manufactured either way)? That combined with the high prices there sounds like it'd be a giant disincentive to going to Aus for work. My wife and I were toying with the idea of going there for a few years to work, but between the housing prices and this, it seems like it'd be a total waste of time and money.

Other RHD countries are a large chunk of southern Africa, India, New Zealand and a decent chunk of the SW Pacific.

Yeah, but most of those countries are dirt poor and not exactly big markets for anything but super cheap (like Tata) cars. NZ is different, but I already mentioned them, and they're almost part of Australia anyway (honestly, I think they'd be better off if they just joined into a single country; they're not very different and they could share a currency).

and thirdly because the vast, vast majority of vehicle components are going to be identical between LHD and RHD models anyway.

Yes, but many of the interior parts are not, and many of those parts are pretty pricey, such as the front seats, the dashboard, etc.

Finally, even if Australia switched to LHD, the vehicles would still need to be built to Australia's vehicle design regulations (which I expect is where the bulk of design and manufacturing cost difference goes), so you still wouldn't be able to just import any random car and drive it off the dock.

Yeah, but how different can those regulations be from USA or UK or EU regulations? Honestly, much of that stuff should pretty much be all the same these days, and I imagine global automakers generally design their cars to meet all those regulations simultaneously (i.e., by designing for the highest standards in each category). The only exceptions would probably be simple things, like the daytime running lights required in Canada, which is easily added onto any car (these days, you can just throw a strip of LEDs into the headlight housing).

Re:An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[drsmithy]

So suppose you're a US Citizen moving to Australia for work; what's the deal there? Assuming you have a car you've owned for a few years, do you still have to have it converted (which sounds like a very costly proposition for the parts needed, even if it's a model that was made specifically to be manufactured either way)?

You can get a temporary permit for up to (I believe) 12 months for a LHD vehicle. I think there are also limited user permits (eg: 90 days/year). For obvious reasons (I was moving back permanently, or at least for many years) I don't know a lot about short-term arrangements.

(To a large degree this whole scenario is simply reflective of the much looser restrictions around most aspects of vehicle ownership in the typical USA state as compared to other countries. Eg: when I was living in AZ, it would appear you could register just about anything with an engine and brake lights, and licenses didn't expire for decades.)

That combined with the high prices there sounds like it'd be a giant disincentive to going to Aus for work. My wife and I were toying with the idea of going there for a few years to work, but between the housing prices and this, it seems like it'd be a total waste of time and money.

IME, for people in developed countries, emigration is largely a lifestyle, not economic, decision. If it is an economic decision, it's one with a long term (10-20+ years) timeline (ie: short term and relatively small expenses like cars aren't really a factor) or it's for extremely lucrative financial returns (ie: costs aren't really an issue).

Having moved countries myself a couple of times now, I cannot imagine many good reasons to bring a car along (or, indeed, anything else that doesn't fit in a few suitcases - unless you're moving *out* of the USA where everything is so cheap, in which case you buy up a whole household before you leave and pack it into a container like we did). The raw import (and subsequent re-export) costs alone would likely soak up most of the possible cost savings, and that's before accounting for the dramatically higher insurance you'd be paying, the huge difficulties if you ever wanted to sell it, higher repair costs, the paperwork hassles, and the inconvenience of not having the car anyway for ~2 months on either end of the move. I know plenty of people who have moved to and from Australia (and other countries) for extended periods of time. Most of them never considered bringing vehicles (in either direction) to be a particularly feasible plan.

If your car is particularly old & unique, and/or expensive, than can change the equation somewhat. But in the former case it will likely fall into one of the exception categories and in the latter case you probably have the money to either meet the import costs, or simply buy the local version.

(Obviously the situation is significantly different if you're moving between countries that have land connections - but most of those don't have the sorts of restrictions we're talking about.)

Yes, but many of the interior parts are not, and many of those parts are pretty pricey, such as the front seats, the dashboard, etc.

I would be surprised if even 5% of the components *needed* to be different between a LHD and RHD variant of the same car (no reason for anything rear of the dashboard to be different, even most of the dash components will be the same or simply mirror-flipped - the only major engineering differences will be in the steering and front suspension). There's almost certainly more differences between the multiple models and options within a vehicle family.

Yeah, but how different can those regulations be from USA or UK or EU regulations? Honestly, much of that stuff should pretty much be all the same these days, and I imagine global automakers generally design their cars to meet all those regulations simultaneously (i.e., by designing for the hi

So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[king neckbeard]

the University of Wisconsin system could be forced to return millions of dollars in federal broadband grants that it has already won,

So, does that mean the telecoms are going to return the BILLIONS in subsidies and tax cuts they've received?

Re:So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[Kingofearth]

But those billions are going to trickle down to us, remember? Giving tax money to corporations invigorates the economy, giving tax money to education traps our children in a lifetime of debt. /s

Re:So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[mbkennel]

If they don't want to live off the tax payer's pocketbook, they can refuse any business from government institutions, like say universities and let those universities fend for themselves.

Are they doing that?
a) yes
b) no

Re:So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate having to bring this up every single time, but if you bother to do any investigation into that "billions given to the telecom industry" figure, you'll discover that:

1. No subsidies were given. At all. None.
2. The "tax cuts" being counted are all tax cuts - meaning the Bush tax cuts count as "giving money to the telecoms" for the purpose of that figure.
3. The obvious, the "billions" figure uses general tax cuts and applies it to the entire telecom industry.

The "billions given to the telecom industry" never actually happened.

But whatever, I'll get modded down for bothering to do research that goes against Democrat talking points, and the people spouting the same stupid Democrat shit will get modded up. Along with their proclamations of "not being a Democrat" without even any recognition that you don't have to vote D to be swindled by D talking points.

Re:So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[Falconhell]

You dont have socialism in the US, just right and far right. It's enlessly amusing to see such incredible ignorance.

Re:So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[king neckbeard]

"They may get some subsides and tax cuts ( both of which I hate and would like to eliminate), but they do not live off the tax payers pocketbook. " Do you not see the inconsistency there? They get some money from government sources. They get the rest from customers paying their bills. That's not horribly different from a public service.

"they compete unlike these socialist organizations we call public institutions" No, they don't compete. I have two options where I live, internet from the phone company and internet from the cable company. Most of the time, the phone and cable companies have exclusive deals with the city or county government.

"Live in the real world, get off the public dime and compete. purchase goods and services at fair market prices like every one else does." In the real world, it appears that municipal and member owned institutions are the only practical choices for utilities. Internet is a utility.

Welcome To The Teapublican Paradise

[SplicerNYC]

It is rather breathtaking to see what the real exercise of power is even if it is in the cause of greed.

disgusting

[pak9rabid]

Seems only fair that if the telcos want UW to pay back the grant money that was given to them by the federal government, then AT&T should have to pay back the roughly $200 billion they stole from the public to make available 45 MBit, fiber connections to the public...that they never did.

Competitive?

[Mycroft-X]

Taking tax dollars from 49 states and using it to undercut local providers isn't competition. It appears that this legislation is simply preventing WiscNet from receiving public funds from UW-Madison, which it is doing in order to do an end-run around the existing state-supported network, Badgernet.

If WiscNet, a non-profit organization, can't provide service at lower prices than a for-profit corporation like AT&T without forced revenue from tax subsidies, then I'd say that AT&T is competitive.

All they are doing is crying "Thanks to the tax money we take from you we can give away more service than we could otherwise pay for. If you take that away, then we'll need to charge market rates for the service we are providing!"

Re:Competitive?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Taking tax dollars from 49 states and using it to undercut local providers isn't competition.

Nice spin. You're implying that the telecommunications grant isn't available to the other 49 states and somehow the rest of the country is being shortchanged. You also overlooked the purpose of these grants. Without them private entities would not expand their broadband offering to rural areas. If there was truly a free market telecommunication market then people in rural areas would still be paying too much for POTS (plain old telephone system) and would only have dial up access to their ISP.

I can't help but notice that the republican party advocates cutting subsidies to non-profits because of "free market" concerns, yet is amazingly quiet about government subsidies going to profitable industries (eg. oil).

Re:Competitive?

[Joehonkie]

Good thing AT&T never took any tax dollars or used public infrastructure, then.

Re:Competitive?

[NeutronCowboy]

Market rates? First, you're going to have to define what the market is. Oh, there is only one private company, one state-born and one state-supported company around? Gee, not much of a market there. Then, you're going to have to define service. What uptime? What up/download speeds? What caps? What times? What support? Finally - and this is especially important given we are talking about university access to Internet - what is the cost to research and public education when switching to ATT's version of service? You might very well end-up trying to save pennies, and having to spend dollars to make up for the drop in research and public education.

Re:Competitive?

[SETIGuy]

If WiscNet, a non-profit organization, can't provide service at lower prices than a for-profit corporation like AT&T without forced revenue from tax subsidies, then I'd say that AT&T is competitive.

And is AT&T going to give up it's subsidies in order to level the playing field? I didn't think so. So we'll see AT&T with its billions in subsidies and tens of billions in profits battling WiscNet with is $0 in subsidies and $0 in profits. AT&T can provide services to the schools and libraries for free for a few years until the competition is dead. Then they can charge whatever the hell they want. (That seems to be AT&T's internet pricing formula).

Re:Competitive?

[MightyMartian]

And don't forget corn ethanol subsidies, which have the added bonus of raising food prices.

Re:Competitive?

[Jthon]

The money they took is also available to telco's. The telco's are just pissed they didn't get the money first. As it is private industry already operates with millions of dollars worth of our tax money.

Re:Competitive?

[hrvatska]

I can't help but notice that the republican party advocates cutting subsidies to non-profits because of "free market" concerns, yet is amazingly quiet about government subsidies going to profitable industries (eg. oil).

You're quite mistaken. Republicans have been quite vocal in their support of oil. To be fair, subsidies for the petroleum industry is not exclusively a Republican cause. There are also a fair number idiot Democrats who seem to think oil being over $100 isn't enough incentive for companies to go out and drill for oil.

Re:Competitive?

[SydShamino]

If WiscNet, a non-profit organization, can't provide service at lower prices than a for-profit corporation like AT&T without forced revenue from tax subsidies

They provide service to public schools, libraries, and local governments. ALL of its revenue comes from tax subsidies. As opposed to AT&T, which derives merely some of its revenue from tax subsidies, while other parts are derived from bribes for continued monopolies and subsequently jacked-up rates.

Re:Competitive?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You got me there. I really should of said "... amazingly quiet about cutting government subsidies going to profitable industries.

I agree about the oil subsidy issue being a little nonpartisan. Mainly because:

1. Oil companies are successful at equating subsidies to local jobs in the minds of the voter. The republicans use this argument to justifying their pro-corporate agenda, and democrats (particularly the ones in oil states) fear the possibility that a republican opponent in the next reelection may equate the nonsupport of said subsidy as not being for job growth in their state.

2. A politician in a state with oil interests will do everything in his/her power to keep the petroleum industry happy enough to help finance their reelection campaign, and not give them a reason to help finance the election campaign of an opponent.

Obviosuly the UW sports teams are a problem too!

[Yohahn]

You know, the football team at UW Madison might compete with the NFL for ratings.
Also the basketball team may compete with the NBA for ratings.
Obviously there is MUCH more to privatize.

(Or maybe there is a role for publicly owned things?)

It gets even more crazy. On the UW, Madison campus the UW hospital is a public authority (basically a separate entity from the UW) Can the university provide LAN access to that building? Not the way things are written now.

Craziness.

Fighting Bob LaFollette is spinning in his grave

[xanthos]

The contrast between Walker and another former Wisconsin governor couldn't be greater.

Having lived there for my first 50 years I was brought up learning all about the states progressive past. Walker is the states biggest embarassment since Joe McCarthy.

Better change the state motto from Forward to Backward.

Let the Free market decide!

[jzarling]

So the AT&T system would cost an additional 6 million dollars, and cost schools, and public libraries approximately 4X as much. A forward thinking Republican should propose we (i live in WI) invest in WiscNet to make it the data connection the entire state government uses - after all wouldn't the threat of a significant loss in sales force a private entity to become more competitive?

Could today's xkcd have been ANY more timely??

[WebManWalking]

Link to the specific cartoon, in case you're reading this later in the week: http://www.xkcd.com/911/

WiscNet was second target

[white_owl]

The real target here was the federal stimulus money (NTIA, BTOP) that was being used to create coops in Wisconsin. The Building Community Capacity through Broadband project which would have connected together anchor institutions (city and county governments, libraries, schools, hospitals) and allow them to buy bandwidth wholesale rather than retail. That did not sit too well with some telecom folks and in the press they are saying that the University should not compete with the private sector. Well the University has to get bandwith in most of the state anyway to feed the various Univ of Wisc campuses. So including some school systems in the process makes sense if you believe in efficiency and cost savings. Gov Walker is "open for business" so he does not believe in government efficiency.

WiscNet was, as I understand it a secondary concern, although the telecoms have wanted it to die for a decades. It is the same pattern of schools banding together and riding together on common infrastructure. ATT would like that to go away with WiscNet in favor of Badgernet which they run or even better, from their point of view, to sell everyone T-1 lines retail.

This is the second effort for this. The first successful effort (from ATT's perspective) was to give back $37 million of the same stimulus money (NTIA, BTOP) for a different state run project. The spin there was that the Feds did not want to give the money to a private company. But insiders tell me that it was not the feds but ATT. ( wisconsins-stimulus-rejection-too-many-strings-or-too-much-scrutiny)

Re:WiscNet was second target

[wytcld]

This is why corporations should be absolutely forbidden from making any attempt to influence legislatures. Free speech is for individuals, for human beings. No corporation should be allowed to speak to a legislature through any mode whatsoever. They may speak to the public. They may speak to their employees. But they may not order their employees to say anything at all to elected representatives. What citizens say to representatives should be entirely a matter of personal conscience, not paychecks. We literally have a system now in which government is becoming the whore of the corporation.

Yes, under current Supreme Court corruption rules like this would require Constitutional amendment. Let's do it!

Just surprised

[bryan1945]

About up-front and blatant this move is. Generally such moves are a bit more crafty or silent. This is just a big 'FU,' we want our buddies to get their perks for their money.

Re:Just surprised

[Opportunist]

That trend has been forming for quite a while now. Until not long ago, politicians were far more sneaky when trying to dismantle public institutions to shift more power to their "friends" in various businesses. But when they noticed the general "meh" attitude that spreads in the population, I guess they felt a bit let down that we didn't even honor their attempts to veil the sellout to corporations. And now they're pretty much blunt and blatant about it. Simply because there is no public outcry. We've learned to expect that from them, we pretty much expect our politicians to screw us over. And, bluntly, why should they veil it? It's not like we have a choice. Republicans or Democrats, hanging or shooting, Kang or Kodos, it's not like there's really a difference.

And please don't start something like "then run yourself" or "vote for another candidate". Please. At least be sensible. First, people are too stupid for democracy to really work, they're too caught up in petty bickering about how much party A is the hell spawn and if they don't vote for B the apocalypse is going to happen the day after the election. And second, the amount of money required to do something like this is crippling, it's like telling someone to open a competing telco if they're not happy with the AT&T service.

So why should they be sneaky about selling us out? It's not like we can do anything about it anyway.

Re:Just surprised

[bryan1945]

I'm not of the "go run yourself" ilk. Those who will actually do so will do without any prompting. I was thinking after the big protests against the union stuff that they would obfuscate some. But I fear you are correct, that mostly we don't care. The part that frustrates me is that when I do email, call, or send letters to my representatives, all I get back is "Thank you for letting the Congressmen/Senator/Governor know your position, he will take it into account" blow off. It would be nice if they could just tell me to "well, it's nice and all you care, but really, we don't give a fuck what you think because you didn't give us enough money."
I can see why people are so blah on voting. I'm 50/50 in 'voting wins' since '92 (and with 3 different parties, to boot, ha!)

Re:Just surprised

[Opportunist]

"Voting wins"? This isn't a lottery where you can win an SUV if you pick the candidate that eventually wins the popularity contest.

Sadly, it seems that's what most people are concerned about. And I'm not actually "accusing" you of being one of them, you just reminded me of that problem so I'd like to elaborate. It's amazing how people are trying to jump the bandwagon just so they're able to proudly proclaim "we won". The idea of voting for a party because they represent them better, even if there is no chance of them "winning" doesn't even cross their mind.

Re:Just surprised

[bryan1945]

I think you misunderstood me. By 'voting wins' I meant that the candidate that I voted for won the election. As I said above I've voted for 3 different parties, and I'm registered independent. My point is that I don't vote a party line, and I still only have 1/2 of my choices get into office. Which is pretty much the same as person who votes a party line gets. I didn't mean to make it sound like a sport.
I understand your point of people want "to win" for their satisfaction of being "winners." Sure I'm happy if the guy/gal I voted get elected. But, hell, I voted for Ross Perot way back when (it seemed like a good choice then).
I'm not sure if I've been phrasing his correctly; I get no joy of being a winner just to be on a bandwagon. I vote for the person I think will least screw everything up. (Which seems to be increasing unlikely anymore)
And thanks for not calling me any names. Refreshing not to be called 'dumbass' or some such.

It's been said before

[biodata]

In soviet russia the government runs the corporations.

Re:It's been said before

[Opportunist]

I've had something like that in my sig for ages.

Yes

[wytcld]

Why should we educate American kids, when Chinese kids study so much harder?

Our corporate/Chinese overlords are totally against spending another dime on American education, aside from private money spent in our elite universities to educate the American executive class ... and Chinese!

Re:FTFY

[SETIGuy]

Of course it's false. You don't expect the corporatists to tell the truth, do you?

Re:Just spawn a private sector ISP?

[SETIGuy]

Repeat after me: "There is nothing illegal or immoral about public infrastructure."

Re:use your...

[MightyMartian]

WTF, are you cave man? "Me tax dollars, you make fucky-fucky!"

Incoherence and greed in one package. Let me guess, you're a card carrying Tea Party member.

It's good for competition

[dUb]

If somebody can do it cheaper then it's better for consumers.
But competing against free? Just same as paid OS versus free OS.
Your laptop's free OS is also good even you get some trial(crap)ware what you should pay later.
WIth free internet you could get some ads. Or would you pay to get it ad-free?

Here is one good example from Nordic country where University, City and local companies can make it free for all http://www.panoulu.net/

Re:Fighting Bob LaFollette is spinning in his grav

[codepunk]

Sorry but I think Walker is one of the best governors to date. He is the only one of our recent governors that is actually attempting to fix the fiscal mess the others kept kicking down the road.

I am sure your liberal friends take your same view but get over it, you lost in November.

Re:Fighting Bob LaFollette is spinning in his grav

[glodime]

You're kidding, right? Walker created a short term budget deficit and then wants praise for quashing his crisis while creating collateral damage. Wisconsin never had a long term budget issue.

Re:FTFY

[Squiddie]

I say we let the free market decide what the truth is.

Poor effort again.

[Falconhell]

Ah good morning APK, back to amuse me more eh? Still havent made me angry at all, just enjoying watching you thrash around desperately trying to annoy me and failing so miserably its hillarious.

BTW a 5 year old could come up with a better insult than Falcon douche, troll baby.

Hoiw incredibly pathetic a life you must have is as an AC you monitor my account just to troll it.

Guess thats to be expected from a frustrated malware writer eh?

Still LMAO!