Why don't you read the fucking article? No taxes were imposed to pay for this. Bonds were sold to provide start-up costs. Revenue is through subscriptions.
From the article: If the service doesn't pay for itself, however, Wilson has two options for paying its debt: It can raise other utility rates, or it can raise taxes.
That is NOT the level playing field you're asking for because that option isn't open to corporations.
You do realize that TWC only exists in its current form due to government intervention, don't you? TWC has received far more in tax dollars than this company will receive in its lifetime.
Yes, they are scum. And their attempt to legislate around this is pathetic.
The source article was two or three links deep from what was put up in the summary. The one crucial difference is that the blogs and summary said the city went to TWC and Embarq and was rebuffed. The source article says they went to the private sector, including TWC and Embarq and found no takers. Big difference. If no private business was interested, and the citizens wanted to pay for it, by all means plow ahead.
All *I* want is a level playing field like you ask for. Governments frequently have unfair advantages in these situations, which is my beef.
Central and South America are totally different entities and not comparable to the U.S. IIRC, many of those issues included water *rights* as well, as opposed to just providing service on contract. The corruption levels of the governments there, at all levels, distort the market beyond belief.
That isn't free market, it is theft by corporations with government blessing, even if it is unofficial.
Did I mention your sig was spot on?:-)
No income tax would be paid, because the government entity isn't raping the consumer by stealing profits.
Are you kidding? In Central and South America? Where in the hell do you think those corporations got those sweet 99-year leases from? Corrupt governments with officials lining their pockets at the people's expense using corporations to do their work for them.
Why is it all the leftist officials could afford limos, palaces and the best of everything when "the people" lived in abject poverty? It wasn't corporations, it was corrupt government.
Mmmmmm....maybe, if you were talking about traditional telephone service. Franchise authority for cable television and data services are given to the municipalities. To the best of my knowledge, no de jure monopoly exists in the U.S. for those services.
The project does not use tax dollars, it is revenue supported.
Can you back that up? The FAQ I saw said the infrastructure build-out was paid for with a bond offering. It makes no mention of whether or not the service is self-sustaining and if that bond is going to be paid 100% without tax revenues. All it says is taxes won't go up, but not that current taxes aren't being used. And I've seen too many "we won't increase taxes" bonds that end up with tax increases anyway, down the road, because the revenue models were unsustainable.
Governments can provide superior or cheaper service usually because they cheat. Municipal services are tax exempt, whereas private companies are not.
My ideology is fine for me. You fail to take into account all of the hidden costs that governments like to bury things in. Most of the time the free market is a vastly superior source for providing service.
I really have no issue with a city doing this, as long as they don't seriously tilt the playing field by paying for things like this out of general taxes. Even then, if that is what the citizens want then that is what you offer them. That's the whole point for living in a city.
I have SERIOUS problems if this were done on a Federal level. You CAN'T opt-out of the Federal initiatives without renouncing citizenship and leaving the country. Everywhere else you can simply opt-out by moving.
Possibly. And how long do we intend to pay tribute and put up with the situation? How do we expect piracy to end, if not by violence? The whole "oh, those poor people are just committing piracy because they have no other way to eat -- lets help them" mentality essentially condones the piracy as a justifiable act. That leads to a very bad place.
I believe the old campaign slogan was "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute!"
There were multiple articles. I didn't dig thru all of them.
Infrastructure costs were paid for with bonds. Are those bonds paid for by service fees alone? Or will existing taxes go towards paying off the bonds? The FAQ only says that taxes won't RISE, not that current levels of taxation aren't being used to pay for the system.
No, they have ALWAYS not. And usually they get to CHEAT, by not being subject to Federal, State and Local taxes, like a private company. Remove those taxation costs from the private companies and you'd see and even bigger savings.
A hint for future arguments. The use of absolutes, like "always" and "never" are dangerous and easy to debunk. All it takes is one counter-example and you're backpedaling.
I thought the whole idea of not arming crews was to prevent possible death to the crews. Do these people think that only applies to GUNS, and not other forms of arms? The pirates are armed with guns, RPGs and the like, not fucking water pistols. They do not have a "stun" setting. Does anyone in their right mind think the pirates, after getting a ship flooded or tasered aren't going to actually use the weapons THEY have? Do they expect the pirates to say "Gosh, you fought fair and humanely. We'll just ignore all that extra effort, pain and discomfort."
Wrong.
How about just adding armed and trained guards to the ships? Maybe armed and trained escort ships? Q-boats? A Naval destroyer sitting in the main bay, shelling their HQ?
Or is this just the kinder, gentler pirates of the 21st century?
I RTFA and that is *NOT* what they did. They went to the incumbent providers and asked THEM to provide faster service. They did NOT put together a general RFP open to any other companies. They needed to go out and say "We want X and are willing to pay for it. Is there ANYONE out there willing to provide this and at what cost?"
As far as the "providing it for less" part, I'd be interested in auditing the books on that. While they may be DIRECTLY billing customers less than TWC and Embarq, I wonder if they are subsidizing the cost with general taxation revenue. Also, did the use general taxation revenue to build the infrastructure? And, are they looking to recoup those costs via the service provided or just ignore it as an off-book expense?
All of those are what other, non-government providers, have to do. None of them are free, but a government can bury the costs so the general public THINKS they're getting something for nothing. TANSTAAFL.
If there are no profits then the project is unsustainable and will fail. Period. You will not have any revenues for upgrades, maintenance or expansion unless you steal it using increased taxes. Then you are getting profits, just under the table via increased taxation.
If you really want a not EXORBITANT profit, which seems to be what you're worried about, then form a co-op and set up business. If you can run it efficiently, you could keep your costs down and be the low bidder while still making enough profit to set aside for expansion, maintenance and unexpected surprises.
The ability to bypass or ignore all the government imposed tariffs, taxes and fees. The ability to bypass or ignore government mandated zoning, impact and environmental laws and regulations. The unfair advantage of not having to deal with various government boards for right-of-way and zoning permits or waivers. The ability to use eminent domain laws to forcibly confiscate private property.
The correct way for the government entity to do this is -- assuming a mandate from their population -- create the RFP defining what they want and then put it out to bid for private companies. If there is profit to be made, someone will step up to the plate.
This is Slashdot. You expect us to believe you have friends? Okay, okay. You did say "green" and not "girl", so maybe...
Re:will fuck a lot of things important to slashdot
on
Oracle Buys Sun
·
· Score: 1
Keep in mind that Larry Ellison feels a compulsion to compare pricks with Bill Gates. MS Office is one of the two main revenue sources for Microsoft, so there is a good possibility that Oracle will pump R&D into OpenOffice as a direct attack on Microsoft.
And Sun's T2 and Niagara chipsets are pretty much designed explicitly for the grid and clustering. From the threads per watt angle they have it all over Intel.
A bit from George Carlin, the Big Electron rest his soul...
* * *
We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn'
Some scientist will take this off shore and you'll be hearing things like "Animal rights activists drove him out of the States. Got so bad you couldn't cage a rat without reading him his rights."
What do you expect? It had to find a black turtleneck, offer some snide, unasked for criticism of your iTunes playlist, and order a double-whip, half-caf, non-fat latte before deciding which port was cool enough to grace with its packets. It may not be very effective, but it looks FABULOOOOOOOOOOOOUS!
Your understanding is incorrect. The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the right "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;", Article I, Section 8.
Past SCOTUS rulings have prohibited States from overburdening businesses by forcing them to collect sales taxes from jurisdictions they don't have a physical presence in. That is because there are over 7,000 different sales tax jurisdictions when you take into account all the counties and cities that charge tax on top of the State tax. That ruling, mentioned in TFA, had SCOTUS saying explicitly that it was up to Congress to sort the mess out. This is what they're now trying to do.
IMHO they have no chance unless States start unifying their tax codes, and I don't see that happening en masse. Good luck getting all those States to repeal "home rule" laws that allow municipalities and counties to charge sales tax premiums.
The Federal Gov'ts massive tinkering in 1993 and 1995 with the CRA created a secondary market that acted as a smoke screen. Specifically, your argument that the majority of the subprime loans were "made" by firms not even subject to the CRA is the red herring. "Originated" is the correct term, which means they acted as a broker between the borrower and the bank who actually financed the loan. Even the Minneapolis Fed report makes note of this, which is what the blog on Businessweek glosses over. While the originators of the loans weren't covered by the CRA, just about EVERY LOAN was sold to a bank covered by the CRA so those banks could meet their quotas for "loan diversity".
And I'm not blaming the "poor" or "minorities". The ALT-As also included many middle-class folks who simply were buying WAY too much house for their income stream. A couple making $50K + $35K / year have no business buying $300K+ homes.
I stand by my original evaluation that much of this mess was caused specifically by government, not regulating, but their ham-handed attempts at social and economic engineering.
Originally, yes. But, over the past 17 years, there were continual commands from Congress to banks to make housing "more affordable". Congress mandated multiple times that banks lower their criteria for extending mortgage loans, under threat of non-compliance with the CRA. Congress put forward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a backstop for bank risk and that is what collapsed both companies.
Government mandates on CRA loans created a false market for sub-prime loans. Mortgage brokers went to non-CRA banks saying "I have this pool of sub-primes that we can sell to FNMA -- guaranteed. If you don't do business with me, I will go to a CRA bank that will." Gov't subsidized banks would could operate at an unfair advantage. If you didn't play by the same rules, you were going to lose a lot of business and possibly go under. They were made an offer they couldn't refuse.
Yes, the CRA was designed with a noble purpose in mind. However, like almost every other law that gets in like this, it was twisted and used in ways never intended by its authors. The people it was trying to help took the brunt of the damage. The government twisted the term of "home ownership" to mean "paying rent to the bank instead of a landlord". The cold, hard fact is not everyone can afford to own a home.
No, it wasn't just "liberals". George H.W. Bush started the push in a desperate attempt to win re-election. Bill Clinton ran with it, knowing a good political idea when he saw it. George W. Bush took a nice hand-off and kept on sprinting with it until the ground fell out from under him.
Capitalism is requiring 20% down and good credit and mortgage insurance to buy a home because the lending agency assumes the risk and has its head on the block. Government interference is setting up a couple of tax-supported agencies to facilitate "universal home ownership" (see "Community Reinvestment Act") and forcing banks to issue more and more sub-prime loans. Government interference is being warned that their mandated programs are going to blow up and Democrats saying everything is just fine.
Capitalism did NOT get us into this mess. Government fiddling in the economy did.
Just like contracts with the Federal Gov't are required to have a certain percentage reserved for small businesses, there should be portions of the spectrum reserved for small businesses. Or, require those big telcos to provide reasonable 100% build-out plans. If areas aren't built out in a certain time frame, they forfeit the use of that PUBLICLY OWNED spectrum that they leased in that area.
For example, if Verizon/ATT/Sprint buys spectrum to cover all of Texas, they have x-number of years to actually COVER ALL OF TEXAS. Those areas that don't have coverage at the deadline go back up for auction, at no minimum bid, with the original lessee being prohibited from bidding.
Next time you auction off spectrum that could be used for JUST THIS PURPOSE, stop setting the minimum bids at astronomical numbers. "Public benefit" doesn't necessarily mean "get as much money for the gov't as possible".
Some good 700 MHz spectrum, at cheap to nothing rates, would spur small businesses to be created to provide access at costs much more in line with what people can pay. You know, if the entry costs weren't more than the GDP of a 3rd World Nation it might spur some innovation.
Then reduce the bureaucracy and cost of getting a license to use that spectrum.
Slashdot Mirror
Why don't you read the fucking article? No taxes were imposed to pay for this. Bonds were sold to provide start-up costs. Revenue is through subscriptions.
From the article: If the service doesn't pay for itself, however, Wilson has two options for paying its debt: It can raise other utility rates, or it can raise taxes.
That is NOT the level playing field you're asking for because that option isn't open to corporations.
You do realize that TWC only exists in its current form due to government intervention, don't you? TWC has received far more in tax dollars than this company will receive in its lifetime.
Yes, they are scum. And their attempt to legislate around this is pathetic.
The source article was two or three links deep from what was put up in the summary. The one crucial difference is that the blogs and summary said the city went to TWC and Embarq and was rebuffed. The source article says they went to the private sector, including TWC and Embarq and found no takers. Big difference. If no private business was interested, and the citizens wanted to pay for it, by all means plow ahead.
All *I* want is a level playing field like you ask for. Governments frequently have unfair advantages in these situations, which is my beef.
Central and South America are totally different entities and not comparable to the U.S. IIRC, many of those issues included water *rights* as well, as opposed to just providing service on contract. The corruption levels of the governments there, at all levels, distort the market beyond belief.
That isn't free market, it is theft by corporations with government blessing, even if it is unofficial.
Did I mention your sig was spot on? :-)
No income tax would be paid, because the government entity isn't raping the consumer by stealing profits.
Are you kidding? In Central and South America? Where in the hell do you think those corporations got those sweet 99-year leases from? Corrupt governments with officials lining their pockets at the people's expense using corporations to do their work for them.
Why is it all the leftist officials could afford limos, palaces and the best of everything when "the people" lived in abject poverty? It wasn't corporations, it was corrupt government.
Mmmmmm....maybe, if you were talking about traditional telephone service. Franchise authority for cable television and data services are given to the municipalities. To the best of my knowledge, no de jure monopoly exists in the U.S. for those services.
The project does not use tax dollars, it is revenue supported.
Can you back that up? The FAQ I saw said the infrastructure build-out was paid for with a bond offering. It makes no mention of whether or not the service is self-sustaining and if that bond is going to be paid 100% without tax revenues. All it says is taxes won't go up, but not that current taxes aren't being used. And I've seen too many "we won't increase taxes" bonds that end up with tax increases anyway, down the road, because the revenue models were unsustainable.
Governments can provide superior or cheaper service usually because they cheat. Municipal services are tax exempt, whereas private companies are not.
My ideology is fine for me. You fail to take into account all of the hidden costs that governments like to bury things in. Most of the time the free market is a vastly superior source for providing service.
I really have no issue with a city doing this, as long as they don't seriously tilt the playing field by paying for things like this out of general taxes. Even then, if that is what the citizens want then that is what you offer them. That's the whole point for living in a city.
I have SERIOUS problems if this were done on a Federal level. You CAN'T opt-out of the Federal initiatives without renouncing citizenship and leaving the country. Everywhere else you can simply opt-out by moving.
Possibly. And how long do we intend to pay tribute and put up with the situation? How do we expect piracy to end, if not by violence? The whole "oh, those poor people are just committing piracy because they have no other way to eat -- lets help them" mentality essentially condones the piracy as a justifiable act. That leads to a very bad place.
I believe the old campaign slogan was "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute!"
There were multiple articles. I didn't dig thru all of them.
Infrastructure costs were paid for with bonds. Are those bonds paid for by service fees alone? Or will existing taxes go towards paying off the bonds? The FAQ only says that taxes won't RISE, not that current levels of taxation aren't being used to pay for the system.
No, they have ALWAYS not. And usually they get to CHEAT, by not being subject to Federal, State and Local taxes, like a private company. Remove those taxation costs from the private companies and you'd see and even bigger savings.
http://www.privatization.org/database/policyissues/water_local.html
and more recently
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-crestwood-water-bd19-apr19,0,3074699.story
A hint for future arguments. The use of absolutes, like "always" and "never" are dangerous and easy to debunk. All it takes is one counter-example and you're backpedaling.
I thought the whole idea of not arming crews was to prevent possible death to the crews. Do these people think that only applies to GUNS, and not other forms of arms? The pirates are armed with guns, RPGs and the like, not fucking water pistols. They do not have a "stun" setting. Does anyone in their right mind think the pirates, after getting a ship flooded or tasered aren't going to actually use the weapons THEY have? Do they expect the pirates to say "Gosh, you fought fair and humanely. We'll just ignore all that extra effort, pain and discomfort."
Wrong.
How about just adding armed and trained guards to the ships? Maybe armed and trained escort ships? Q-boats? A Naval destroyer sitting in the main bay, shelling their HQ?
Or is this just the kinder, gentler pirates of the 21st century?
I RTFA and that is *NOT* what they did. They went to the incumbent providers and asked THEM to provide faster service. They did NOT put together a general RFP open to any other companies. They needed to go out and say "We want X and are willing to pay for it. Is there ANYONE out there willing to provide this and at what cost?"
As far as the "providing it for less" part, I'd be interested in auditing the books on that. While they may be DIRECTLY billing customers less than TWC and Embarq, I wonder if they are subsidizing the cost with general taxation revenue. Also, did the use general taxation revenue to build the infrastructure? And, are they looking to recoup those costs via the service provided or just ignore it as an off-book expense?
All of those are what other, non-government providers, have to do. None of them are free, but a government can bury the costs so the general public THINKS they're getting something for nothing. TANSTAAFL.
If there are no profits then the project is unsustainable and will fail. Period. You will not have any revenues for upgrades, maintenance or expansion unless you steal it using increased taxes. Then you are getting profits, just under the table via increased taxation.
If you really want a not EXORBITANT profit, which seems to be what you're worried about, then form a co-op and set up business. If you can run it efficiently, you could keep your costs down and be the low bidder while still making enough profit to set aside for expansion, maintenance and unexpected surprises.
The ability to bypass or ignore all the government imposed tariffs, taxes and fees. The ability to bypass or ignore government mandated zoning, impact and environmental laws and regulations. The unfair advantage of not having to deal with various government boards for right-of-way and zoning permits or waivers. The ability to use eminent domain laws to forcibly confiscate private property.
The correct way for the government entity to do this is -- assuming a mandate from their population -- create the RFP defining what they want and then put it out to bid for private companies. If there is profit to be made, someone will step up to the plate.
This is Slashdot. You expect us to believe you have friends? Okay, okay. You did say "green" and not "girl", so maybe...
Keep in mind that Larry Ellison feels a compulsion to compare pricks with Bill Gates. MS Office is one of the two main revenue sources for Microsoft, so there is a good possibility that Oracle will pump R&D into OpenOffice as a direct attack on Microsoft.
And Sun's T2 and Niagara chipsets are pretty much designed explicitly for the grid and clustering. From the threads per watt angle they have it all over Intel.
A bit from George Carlin, the Big Electron rest his soul...
* * *
We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.
You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn'
Some scientist will take this off shore and you'll be hearing things like "Animal rights activists drove him out of the States. Got so bad you couldn't cage a rat without reading him his rights."
After all, what is the law?
The single 1000W computer is also a single point of failure.
What do you expect? It had to find a black turtleneck, offer some snide, unasked for criticism of your iTunes playlist, and order a double-whip, half-caf, non-fat latte before deciding which port was cool enough to grace with its packets. It may not be very effective, but it looks FABULOOOOOOOOOOOOUS!
Your understanding is incorrect. The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the right "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;", Article I, Section 8.
Past SCOTUS rulings have prohibited States from overburdening businesses by forcing them to collect sales taxes from jurisdictions they don't have a physical presence in. That is because there are over 7,000 different sales tax jurisdictions when you take into account all the counties and cities that charge tax on top of the State tax. That ruling, mentioned in TFA, had SCOTUS saying explicitly that it was up to Congress to sort the mess out. This is what they're now trying to do.
IMHO they have no chance unless States start unifying their tax codes, and I don't see that happening en masse. Good luck getting all those States to repeal "home rule" laws that allow municipalities and counties to charge sales tax premiums.
Yes, but Clinton's fiddling in 1995 pretty much put both of them on steroids. They were all of a sudden 10x bigger than before.
It isn't that simple. See my response to the GP.
The Federal Gov'ts massive tinkering in 1993 and 1995 with the CRA created a secondary market that acted as a smoke screen. Specifically, your argument that the majority of the subprime loans were "made" by firms not even subject to the CRA is the red herring. "Originated" is the correct term, which means they acted as a broker between the borrower and the bank who actually financed the loan. Even the Minneapolis Fed report makes note of this, which is what the blog on Businessweek glosses over. While the originators of the loans weren't covered by the CRA, just about EVERY LOAN was sold to a bank covered by the CRA so those banks could meet their quotas for "loan diversity".
And I'm not blaming the "poor" or "minorities". The ALT-As also included many middle-class folks who simply were buying WAY too much house for their income stream. A couple making $50K + $35K / year have no business buying $300K+ homes.
I stand by my original evaluation that much of this mess was caused specifically by government, not regulating, but their ham-handed attempts at social and economic engineering.
Originally, yes. But, over the past 17 years, there were continual commands from Congress to banks to make housing "more affordable". Congress mandated multiple times that banks lower their criteria for extending mortgage loans, under threat of non-compliance with the CRA. Congress put forward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a backstop for bank risk and that is what collapsed both companies.
Government mandates on CRA loans created a false market for sub-prime loans. Mortgage brokers went to non-CRA banks saying "I have this pool of sub-primes that we can sell to FNMA -- guaranteed. If you don't do business with me, I will go to a CRA bank that will." Gov't subsidized banks would could operate at an unfair advantage. If you didn't play by the same rules, you were going to lose a lot of business and possibly go under. They were made an offer they couldn't refuse.
Yes, the CRA was designed with a noble purpose in mind. However, like almost every other law that gets in like this, it was twisted and used in ways never intended by its authors. The people it was trying to help took the brunt of the damage. The government twisted the term of "home ownership" to mean "paying rent to the bank instead of a landlord". The cold, hard fact is not everyone can afford to own a home.
No, it wasn't just "liberals". George H.W. Bush started the push in a desperate attempt to win re-election. Bill Clinton ran with it, knowing a good political idea when he saw it. George W. Bush took a nice hand-off and kept on sprinting with it until the ground fell out from under him.
Um, no.
Capitalism is requiring 20% down and good credit and mortgage insurance to buy a home because the lending agency assumes the risk and has its head on the block. Government interference is setting up a couple of tax-supported agencies to facilitate "universal home ownership" (see "Community Reinvestment Act") and forcing banks to issue more and more sub-prime loans. Government interference is being warned that their mandated programs are going to blow up and Democrats saying everything is just fine.
Capitalism did NOT get us into this mess. Government fiddling in the economy did.
Just like contracts with the Federal Gov't are required to have a certain percentage reserved for small businesses, there should be portions of the spectrum reserved for small businesses. Or, require those big telcos to provide reasonable 100% build-out plans. If areas aren't built out in a certain time frame, they forfeit the use of that PUBLICLY OWNED spectrum that they leased in that area.
For example, if Verizon/ATT/Sprint buys spectrum to cover all of Texas, they have x-number of years to actually COVER ALL OF TEXAS. Those areas that don't have coverage at the deadline go back up for auction, at no minimum bid, with the original lessee being prohibited from bidding.
Next time you auction off spectrum that could be used for JUST THIS PURPOSE, stop setting the minimum bids at astronomical numbers. "Public benefit" doesn't necessarily mean "get as much money for the gov't as possible".
Some good 700 MHz spectrum, at cheap to nothing rates, would spur small businesses to be created to provide access at costs much more in line with what people can pay. You know, if the entry costs weren't more than the GDP of a 3rd World Nation it might spur some innovation.
Then reduce the bureaucracy and cost of getting a license to use that spectrum.
Idiots.
Slashdot effect
As exemplified by that poor website everyone is now clicking on.