Wealth essentially arises from either A) production of goods/services or B) renting out one's property to others. (Inheritance is a special case not worth including here.)
Technology has produced ENORMOUS quantities of goods and services. (This isn't limited to high-tech, but extends also to the Industrial Revolution and certain tools developed for agriculture.)
High-tech, in particular, has been busy producing successive quanta of goods and services for we the people to consume, enjoy and employ in our daily tasks. Moore's Law has yielded tremendous advancements in a wide variety of economic realms. This has enabled consumers (and businesses) to enjoy & produce more than they ever previously imagined possible. It has opened doors to entirely new economic endeavors and liberated billions from past drudgeries.
Along with developing technological advances, the market price of those advances has declined on a relentless downward march. What someone was willing to shell out $1,000 for three years ago is now available for $100 or $200 -- and offers greater usability, battery life, storage capacity, whatever. That $800 lower price makes me and all similar consumers better off (wealthier). The producer and the retail chain to get it to me only gets $200 for their work; I walk away with $800 of greater satisfaction.
That greater satisfaction and wealth is not measured in the GDP accounts, but it's a reality nonetheless. And it is HUGE.
From this perspective, why should radical progressive youth be upset that some people earn vastly more than the median income? Those folks are the vanguard of a new society and economy for all of us, worldwide. Attempts to besmirch, cripple, accuse and jail or restrain that vanguard is akin to wanting to shoot oneself in the foot. It's entirely emotional and totally illogical.
Even AT&T got their original monopoly honestly (with the help of patents) and the government traded them official status as a monopoly in trade for interoperability.
The concept of getting a monopoly "honestly" boggles my mind. And as re: 'interoperability', I'll believe it when my cellphone can use AT&T's frequencies.
We should continue to waste spectrum so your number of free things doesn't change. (...) I don't think we need to use the vast amounts of spectrum to maintain it, though.
How do you arrive at the conclusion that over-the-air broadcasting is wasteful of spectrum? I think you need to re-examine your assumption. There's plenty of things broadcasting can do in the new digital realm it has only recently entered. Sub-channels is but one.
Isn't all that Japanese infrastructure subsidized? I've heard that much of Japan's "lost decade" (generation?) is a result of tons & tons of infrastructure spending that wasn't economically justified, from the perspective of the nation's productivity. Might this be the case with the prodigious broadband capacity you cite?
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Wealth essentially arises from either A) production of goods/services or B) renting out one's property to others. (Inheritance is a special case not worth including here.) Technology has produced ENORMOUS quantities of goods and services. (This isn't limited to high-tech, but extends also to the Industrial Revolution and certain tools developed for agriculture.) High-tech, in particular, has been busy producing successive quanta of goods and services for we the people to consume, enjoy and employ in our daily tasks. Moore's Law has yielded tremendous advancements in a wide variety of economic realms. This has enabled consumers (and businesses) to enjoy & produce more than they ever previously imagined possible. It has opened doors to entirely new economic endeavors and liberated billions from past drudgeries. Along with developing technological advances, the market price of those advances has declined on a relentless downward march. What someone was willing to shell out $1,000 for three years ago is now available for $100 or $200 -- and offers greater usability, battery life, storage capacity, whatever. That $800 lower price makes me and all similar consumers better off (wealthier). The producer and the retail chain to get it to me only gets $200 for their work; I walk away with $800 of greater satisfaction. That greater satisfaction and wealth is not measured in the GDP accounts, but it's a reality nonetheless. And it is HUGE. From this perspective, why should radical progressive youth be upset that some people earn vastly more than the median income? Those folks are the vanguard of a new society and economy for all of us, worldwide. Attempts to besmirch, cripple, accuse and jail or restrain that vanguard is akin to wanting to shoot oneself in the foot. It's entirely emotional and totally illogical.
Even AT&T got their original monopoly honestly (with the help of patents) and the government traded them official status as a monopoly in trade for interoperability.
The concept of getting a monopoly "honestly" boggles my mind. And as re: 'interoperability', I'll believe it when my cellphone can use AT&T's frequencies.
Honestly, it's like these kids get MBAs and just accept whatever crap is fed to them as fact.
We should continue to waste spectrum so your number of free things doesn't change. (...) I don't think we need to use the vast amounts of spectrum to maintain it, though.
How do you arrive at the conclusion that over-the-air broadcasting is wasteful of spectrum? I think you need to re-examine your assumption. There's plenty of things broadcasting can do in the new digital realm it has only recently entered. Sub-channels is but one.
Isn't all that Japanese infrastructure subsidized? I've heard that much of Japan's "lost decade" (generation?) is a result of tons & tons of infrastructure spending that wasn't economically justified, from the perspective of the nation's productivity. Might this be the case with the prodigious broadband capacity you cite?