No, all the government has to do is allow competitors in.
That is called government regulation. There is a limited amount of resources. Who are they going to let in? How much do they get to buy in for? How are they going to take away the bandwidth/infrastructure that the current ISPs already have? What are the new rules that they all play by now? No rules? Who's going to stop the richest player from buying everything up and become an even worse monopoly?
you need to get permission from whoever owns the land
In most cases this is the government. In the cases it's not, what happens when one individual or small group owns a critical piece of land and only allows Big Monopoly with lots of money through?
If you need to dig, you need to put things back the way they were when you started.
And what about all the major roads and public areas that laying these cables will displace while they are being put in? Are you just going to allow them to be torn up any time a new competitor wants in? How will people get to work?
You mean like those bills in Congress that it is "unreasonable" to expect Congressmen to read and understand before they vote on them?
What's your point? Regardless of whether a member of Congress understands what he/she votes for is irrelevant. If you don't like what they propose or vote for you can cast your own vote to replace them. While most of your options may not be appealing you at least have the option, unlike under corporate control. Have you tried voting Comcast out of your neighbourhood lately?
Cable just isn't the type of thing you can have a "free" market on. Large portions of the cable must be placed on public property and the inconvenience to everyday activities is too great to allow anyone access to tear up the land whenever they want. The government has to be involved. Sticking your head in the sand and wishing it would go away won't solve the problem.
The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
And how do you propose the problem get solved? I see two options:
a) Remove the monopolies granted to the cable and other ISPs (I presume your solution)
or
b) Set up a better system of rules the providers have to play by and actually enforce them.
Neither is perfect, but both require government intervention and regulation. There is no way around it.
In option (a) the government must interfere (again) to "open" up the playing field so to speak. However, it is unclear what that even means. There is only so much pipe to go around (unfortunately). Are you going to let every Tom, Dick and Harry dig holes all over the roads so that every start-up company can own their own infrastructure, so that we can really have a true market place? If not how are you going to allocate the resources? By letting the companies do it? The ones that already took tax payer dollars and would rather buy Disney than spend it on infrastructure improvements? If so what price do they get to sell it for (market value? what's that if they already own all of it?). Leading to the question of why would they even sell it to anyone else? Presumably some rules would need to be set for all these things (who would do that?).
At least in option (b) the rules are set up front. Theoretically they are more transparent because it's an explicit statement of, "these are the rules", and we would potentially get a say in the process. If politicians say one thing about the rules but do something else at least you can not vote for them in the future. I realize this is a small consolation, but the other alternative is a monopolistic company (again how do you get rid of the monopolies without government intervention?) with control and then you don't even have that option.
Either way some kind of government regulation, like it or not, would have to be in place, even for a "deregulated" ISP market.
While I agree with you that it may be a bad idea, unless the kid was actively waving the sprayer in the cops face at the time he was detained it is hard to imagine a possible justification for him being pinned to the ground and tased. It is possible for the kid to be stupid AND the cops to be tyrannical ego maniacs that lack serious judgement.
Scissors - metal with pointed tips and blades shorter than four inches in length.
Small compressed gas cartridges (Up to 2 in life vests and 2 spares)
Common Lighters
Of course good luck trying to convince the agent at the checkpoint that your 4 inch metal scissors or seven inch screwdriver are on their approved list. I never quite get used to it how insane, incompetent and contradictory the TSA is.
Slashdot Mirror
No, all the government has to do is allow competitors in.
That is called government regulation. There is a limited amount of resources. Who are they going to let in? How much do they get to buy in for? How are they going to take away the bandwidth/infrastructure that the current ISPs already have? What are the new rules that they all play by now? No rules? Who's going to stop the richest player from buying everything up and become an even worse monopoly?
you need to get permission from whoever owns the land
In most cases this is the government. In the cases it's not, what happens when one individual or small group owns a critical piece of land and only allows Big Monopoly with lots of money through?
If you need to dig, you need to put things back the way they were when you started.
And what about all the major roads and public areas that laying these cables will displace while they are being put in? Are you just going to allow them to be torn up any time a new competitor wants in? How will people get to work?
You mean like those bills in Congress that it is "unreasonable" to expect Congressmen to read and understand before they vote on them?
What's your point? Regardless of whether a member of Congress understands what he/she votes for is irrelevant. If you don't like what they propose or vote for you can cast your own vote to replace them. While most of your options may not be appealing you at least have the option, unlike under corporate control. Have you tried voting Comcast out of your neighbourhood lately?
Cable just isn't the type of thing you can have a "free" market on. Large portions of the cable must be placed on public property and the inconvenience to everyday activities is too great to allow anyone access to tear up the land whenever they want. The government has to be involved. Sticking your head in the sand and wishing it would go away won't solve the problem.
The answer to problems created by government regulation is not more regulation.
And how do you propose the problem get solved? I see two options: a) Remove the monopolies granted to the cable and other ISPs (I presume your solution) or b) Set up a better system of rules the providers have to play by and actually enforce them. Neither is perfect, but both require government intervention and regulation. There is no way around it.
In option (a) the government must interfere (again) to "open" up the playing field so to speak. However, it is unclear what that even means. There is only so much pipe to go around (unfortunately). Are you going to let every Tom, Dick and Harry dig holes all over the roads so that every start-up company can own their own infrastructure, so that we can really have a true market place? If not how are you going to allocate the resources? By letting the companies do it? The ones that already took tax payer dollars and would rather buy Disney than spend it on infrastructure improvements? If so what price do they get to sell it for (market value? what's that if they already own all of it?). Leading to the question of why would they even sell it to anyone else? Presumably some rules would need to be set for all these things (who would do that?).
At least in option (b) the rules are set up front. Theoretically they are more transparent because it's an explicit statement of, "these are the rules", and we would potentially get a say in the process. If politicians say one thing about the rules but do something else at least you can not vote for them in the future. I realize this is a small consolation, but the other alternative is a monopolistic company (again how do you get rid of the monopolies without government intervention?) with control and then you don't even have that option.
Either way some kind of government regulation, like it or not, would have to be in place, even for a "deregulated" ISP market.
for(std::list<Item*> it=list.begin();it!=list.end();it++) {
cout << (*it)->name << "\n";
}
Or you could do it the "real" c++ way and be less verbose with increased flexibility.
copy(list.begin(), list.end(), ostream_iterator<Item*>(cout, "\n"));
While I agree with you that it may be a bad idea, unless the kid was actively waving the sprayer in the cops face at the time he was detained it is hard to imagine a possible justification for him being pinned to the ground and tased. It is possible for the kid to be stupid AND the cops to be tyrannical ego maniacs that lack serious judgement.
Of course good luck trying to convince the agent at the checkpoint that your 4 inch metal scissors or seven inch screwdriver are on their approved list. I never quite get used to it how insane, incompetent and contradictory the TSA is.