The screening is done at boarding time not because US authorities have long arms. US authorities have no jurisdiction over who does or doesn't board in the UK. What they are saying is "we won't admit this passenger if he shows up at the US border", Since the airline doesn't want to be stuck with passengers with no place to go once they arrive at the US border, they won't even let you board the flight if you wouldn't be admitted.
Given that it's the cities resources that need to be used (i.e. land, roads, sewers, conduit, etc) to create the broadband infrastructure, I would prefer that the city retain ownership of these assets rather than trying to save a little money by letting the telecoms own this otherwise public good.
That's a non-sequitur.
It's not a non-sequitur (something that doesn;t follow), because it is the actual claim I am making
Well, if that's your "actual claim", I agree completely: you clearly prefer that. You may also prefer to have your balls ritualistically shaved by Vilma. But, guess what, it's not the job of government to cater to your preferences. If you want Vilma to ritualistically shave your testicles, that's between you and Vilma, and don't come running to government if you don't like Vilma's prices or conditions.
Can we interpret the argument as leadiig to the conclusion that, since the market will underinvest, given externalities, government action will correct the misallocation of resources by adding to the mileage of road construction? This will not work either. On the one hand, the addition of govemment investment in mads may decrease the amount of private investment,' so that the total amount of road building, private plus public, may fall below the previously established market level and thus worsen the so-called original underinvestment in roads. On the other hand, government, unshackled by any market test of profitability, may so expand the scope of road building that a resultant overinvestment may ensue. If so, a new misallocation will emerge, with an overinvestment substituted for an underinvestment. Further, even if government action results in the correct amount of total road mileage, government management of its domain may be so inept as to erase any allocation gains. If any of these eventualities obtains, and there is little reason to think not, then the argument fails.
I am not sure if you are aware, but the internet is a global network. It's not just the part in your house.
Which is why I said "Internet access", because that's what we're talking about. I'm not sure you are aware of it, but words have meanings, and "Internet access" means something different from "Internet".
Ah, so you are advocating handouts to a special interest group, you just refer to that group as "the people" to obscure that fact.
WTF are you talking about? I am specifically advocating *not* handing over our infrastructure to anyone
Broadband users are a "special interest group". Whether you realize it or not, public ownership of broadband infrastructure intrinsically amounts to a handout to this group; if it didn't, public ownership would be unnecessary in the first place because private companies would already be providing the same service at the same or lower cost.
Giving free broadband aligns with the interests of "the people who use broadband". It just doesn't align with the interests of a lot of other people.
Who the fuck said anything about it needing to be free? If you recall, I specifically talked about the having the revenue equal the cost to make it self sustaining.
I was illustrating that the interests of broadband users and the interests of all persons that government represents are different. You argued that an act is good because it "aligns with the interests of the people". Well, the act of giving free broadband to broadband uses would be an example of something that "aligns with" the interests of broadband users, but it doesn't "align with" the interests of the entirety of all "the people" represented by government.
Private ownership of roads doesn't mean individual ownership. Most roads would be owned by associations similar to HOAs.
1. I don't see how that makes it better. 2. Why are you opposed to individual ownership of roads?
IT's "better" because it ensures that the people owning the road operate it according to a profit motive and according to self-contained revenu-vs-cost accounting, as opposed to operating it according to political motives and being funded through general funds. See, once you subsume something into "government", the idea that you have a "self-sustaining service" doesn't work (because you simply can't account for costs and benefits anymore).
And I'm not "opposed to" individual ownership, I'm simply pointing out that your examples of "Uncle McScrooge desiced to screw Planned Parenthood" doesn't work private ownership of infrastructure simply doesn't end up working that way.
I am saying that it's impossible for a private company to provide high speed internet without government collusion.
That's obviously false: for many years, my Internet access went over wireless point-to-point, and for many more years entirely over private lines.
Given that it's the cities resources that need to be used (i.e. land, roads, sewers, conduit, etc) to create the broadband infrastructure, I would prefer that the city retain ownership of these assets rather than trying to save a little money by letting the telecoms own this otherwise public good.
That's a non-sequitur.
The people who live in the city, and more specifically the people who use broadband.
Ah, so you are advocating handouts to a special interest group, you just refer to that group as "the people" to obscure that fact.
Giving free broadband aligns with the interests of "the people who use broadband". It just doesn't align with the interests of a lot of other people.
So let's say I own a very high traffic road that a lot of people depend on for commuting everyday. Let's say I decide to jack up the toll to $100 per trip. Or let's say I decide I am going to close my road as a protest until the government cuts funding to planned parenthood. How does this situation get remedied in your ideal world of private roads?
Private ownership of roads doesn't mean individual ownership. Most roads would be owned by associations similar to HOAs.
But, yes, private owners can do things that you disagree with. So can the government. The good thing is that with private owners, there are alternatives. When the government imposes its will, you have no choice but to comply.
It's weird that on the one hand you don;t think the government can do anything right,
I think there are lots of things government can do quite well, like fight wars, prosecute murder, and guarantee freedom of speech. What it can't do right is run a business or run the economy or protect people from their own follies.
but somehow you think the auctioning process would be free of mismanagement. Wouldn't the corrupt government just do a no bid contract to their cronies?
An "auction" means an "auction", not a "no bid contract".
I think it places too much power in the hands of people whose interests do not align with the people.
And "the people" would be who exactly?
We don't really have time to waste waiting for markets to correct themselves when it comes to keeping roads open, etc.
Markets don't need to "correct themselves" to keep roads open.
And what exactly are you auctioning? The right to dig up the street and put your cables in the ground permanently? Only temporary? What happens when there is a dispute? Do the cables need to be ripped out of the ground? At whose expense?
You tell me. You said that right now "government cuts deals with certain companies to allow them to dig tranches through an entire city, using eminent domain when necessary". Whether that's true or not, and whatever the conditions may be, replace "cutting deals" with "auctioning off". There is rarely any reason for government to "cut deals" instead of making those deals available through public auction.
For the same reason that it's impractical and inefficient for us to have all private roads, it is also impractical and inefficient to have all private telecom infrastructure.
Europe went from all public to mostly private telecom infrastructure, and telecom service improved tremendously. Roads, actually, would benefit tremendously from privatization.
So if one government doesn't work right, it's impossible for government to work right?
Not at all. I just gave you an example for illustration. If you want to know other examples or understand the reason why these kinds of government constructs usually don't deliver, you need to read the literature.
Yeah fuck the democrats for long term planning. The only possible reason for thinking about the future is to fuck over some upstanding republican president
"Long term planning" wouldn't have prevented the president from setting annual goals leading up to the long term goal; but he didn't want to do that because he knew he wouldn't be able to meet any annual goals.
President Obama proposed ConnectED to give the impression like he is doing something for America, and to funnel funds to groups that support him politically. Putting any measurable goal a few years after the end of his presidency isn't intended to "fuck over" anybody, it's simply intended so that nobody asks unpleasant questions while Obama is still in office.
What do you call it when the government cuts deals with certain companies to allow them to dig tranches through an entire city, using eminent domain when necessary
Governments don't need "eminent domain" to put in cable; they already own the streets and usually already have conduit in the ground, so that cables simply need to be pulled.
What do you call it when the government cuts deals with certain companies to allow them to dig tranches through an entire city, using eminent domain when necessary
Even if your incorrect model of how cable gets into the ground were true, government didn't have to "cut deals", they could auction the right to put cable into the ground off. And, in fact, they could auction it off multiple times.
Not necessarily. This would only be true if the municipal broadband was running at a loss.
"At a loss" isn't a meaningful concept when governments and general funds are involved. What you need to look at is where the money comes from. In the case of Chattanooga, for example, $111 million came from federal tax payers and $160 million came from local electric customers, neither of which are automatically beneficiaries of the money.
As long as it's possible for the municipal broadband to be profitable, then the city can either choose to make a profit or lowering prices to just break even.
What seems to happen in practice is that municipal broadband has higher costs than commercial providers, and in order to remain competitive, they lower prices to match commercial operators but then subsidize from other sources.
Conveniently, its goals are set for 2018, a few years after Obama has been out of office, so he can blame his successor.
Of course, even if it achieved its goal of "within five years, connect[ing] 99 percent of America’s students to next-generation broadband and high-speed wireless in their schools and libraries", nobody would bother demonstrating that this actually improved educational outcomes.
Doctors make more money than software developers and there is a shortage. Why doesn't the Obama administration "push" for more medical school graduates to take those high paying medical jobs? Oh, right: the AMA and their lobbyists make sure that regulations remain in place that limit the availability and training of doctors, in order to keep salaries artificially high and unemployment artificially low.
I think the kind of monopolistic practices that exist in the medical field are wrong. But when the Obama administration and Democrats subsidize computer science education and "pushes" people to go into computer science, that is also wrong: it's a direct attack on the salaries of software developers and software engineers, funded by tax dollars. Remember that next time you go to the ballot box.
I didn't say Comcast had a 200% profit margin on everything. Their cable services only accounts for 16% of their revenue, and the physical cable laying accounts for a small portion of that.
I'm sorry, I tried to make the most sense out of your muddled statement of "a 200% profit on the cost of laying fiber", giving you the benefit of the doubt. What you literally said is simply wrong: the "profit on the cost of laying fiber" by itself is, of course, zero or negative, since "laying fiber" is not an activity that generates any revenue.
The rest of what you say is just niave, backwards and assumptions you pull out of a backwards model of how things actually work.
The price and subsidies for municipal broadband in places like Chattanooga aren't based on "assumptions", they are facts, and they contradict your naive assumptions about economics. I'm simply explaining to you why things work that way.
Comcast is a publicly traded corporation; if they had a 200% profit margin, everybody would buy their stock. In fact, Comcast's profit margin is around 10%.
Your argument is also self-contradictory, because if a company can make a 200% profit margin with a monopoly, there is obviously no need to grant it a monopoly.
And the city can't do it much cheaper at all. In fact, municipal fiber in places like Chattanooga has a higher cost than commercial wired Internet access; the only reason the sticker price is lower is because it is heavily subsidized.
The reasoning that "price = cost + profit, therefore if you take the profit motive away, things get cheaper" is faulty. What happens when you take the profit motive away is that the costs rise to match the price, not that the price drops to match the cost. And if you subsidize something, usually the cost goes up by the amount of subsidy, while the price still stays roughly the same.
I'd guess. Tacoma knows what they're doing. Geeks and intellectuals like it, because they have a vision of the future. I'm with them.
Of course, they know what they are doing: they are gentrifying Tacoma, making it more attractive for well-off upper middle class folks, and making it less attractive for blue collar and lower class folks. That's all good and well; the people of Tacoma can be as classist, racist, and discriminatory as they like for all I care.
What isn't OK is to pretend that their political choices are due to some failure of free markets or corporate greed. The group of people that is selfish and greedy is the politically connected upper middle class of Tacoma, and they are making these choices for their own benefits and don't care who they screw in the process. And that's why you like these choices too.
Then they can get DSL, Cable (maybe), Satellite, MiFi, Cellular, or whatever they call internet over power lines. 1Gbps would be fiber only.
Exactly, they can, from existing commercial providers. So, what justification is there for municipal fiber? Municipal fiber is like government subsidizing the purchase of Porsche sports cars with tax dollars.
Sure you get the benefit of not having to pay for the installation (through taxes), but then the customers are stuck dealing with a for-profit monopoly.
What "monopoly"? Most cities already have multiple for-profit wired broadband providers, and even more wireless providers. Tacoma has at least five broadband providers according to the National Broadband Map (http://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers). That's in addition to wireless.
It just seems like a giveaway to a a private sector entity whose interests don't totally align with the those of the public.
When government hands out monopolies, that is indeed not in the interest of the public, which is why government shouldn't do that.
But the idea that municipal broadband totally aligns with the interests of the public is also false. Municipal broadband forces everybody to subsidize a product that only some people want to have. In practice, municipal broadband generally has not delivered cheaper Internet access. Depending on how it's set up, municipal broadband may incur long-term financial liabilities that don't show up until decades later. And municipal broadband discourages commercial providers from providing service in an area.
The one thing municipal broadband seems to be better at than commercial services at is delivering very high speeds. That's why geeks and intellectuals like it. But, in effect, the lower costs for high speeds are subsidized by higher costs for basic Internet access, which means that those less well off are effectively subsidizing the well off who could afford to pay a premium for high speed access. Simply put, 20 Mbps for $30/month is a much better deal for most people than 1 Gbps for $70/month.
The Bitcoin blockchain can already do this - it supports sending verified messages from one party to another. It's not well-suited to high volume high frequency transactions, however,
And there you have the two reasons put together why IBM and the Linux foundation are starting with Bitcoin and modifying it to suit the needs of major financial institutions.
Getting transactions in quick means paying a fee (and you can bet the powers that be would die of shock if you told them they were expected to PAY a fee rather than collect one).
There are other ways of dealing with this, which is again, why they are doing some development.
Bitcoin can be easier to use than dealing with a bank Really can it? I mean, if Alice wants to pay Bob 2 Bitcoin:
Actually, a much more common and simpler problem is: Alice wants to transfer $50000 to herself from the US to France. Right now, there are steep charges, banks screw you on the exchange rate, and on top of all that, they usually collect interest for a few days.
Note, of course, that Bitcoin itself makes it possible and easy to transfer money internationally avoiding banks altogether. So they really have to lower their transaction costs if they want to keep that business.
The risk is that the trade will never be completed as recorded.
Not a big risk, because there would be stiff penalties, and eventually people would get kicked off the system. I mean, the same happened with paper stock certificates, which aren't usually moved around anymore either. In the end, you still get reliable faster clearing and recording of transactions with the new technology, at no increase in risk.
No one cares how long it takes to write a check to clear your credit card balance. Does debit card "settlement" take months?
Many people care, because someone pays interest on that money.
"3"- Comparing it to cash is silly. Yes, it can be stolen, like cash. But you don't have to keep all your dollars in cash, whereas you DO have to keep all your bitcoin in bitcoin. Cash is anonymous, instant, can be guarded or hidden trivially, doesn't require electricity to work, doesn't require a functioning internet to work, and doesn't require a huge server farm in China to work- and can be stolen. Bitcoin is sorta anonymous, maybe, and the rest isn't true, except the stealing part.
You can't easily move large amounts of cash around, though. Try paying for a car in cash. Heck, these days, it's difficult to pay for a car with anything other than a loan.
Bitcoin seems a very early and problem prone solution to a problem that few people have a lot of,
Bitcoin largely eliminates banks as middlemen for money transfers and saves people tons of money and hassle in the process. Yes, that's a problem everybody has.
Also, "Bitcoin is not created for your Grama"... a currency that requires you to be some crypto anarchist cyberpunk guy in order to function at all (before the smarter crypto anarchist cyberpunk guy steals all your shit) is an idea too insane for most novels.
Well, I think he is wrong. Bitcoin can be easier to use than dealing with a bank.
So if it's semi-private, it probably means regular people won't be able to mine
There is nothing to "mine". They want to record transactions for other entities, entities that are not created by mining in the first place. You're not going to create a share in a corporation by mining. That's also why they need to put in some development work and can't just clone Bitcoin.
At some point after that, if you believe the direst government projections, a good part of the low-lying site could be underwater.
Sea levels will have risen maybe a foot by the end of the century. Contrary to the magical thinking of some people, a foot is just a foot. The main area it makes a difference is in the height of dikes and other protective structures: a foot in sea level rise may significantly increase the probability that some water goes over such a structure if it is already marginal. That's easy to fix, though: raise such structures by a foot next time you maintain them (which is regularly).
About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level, so this really isn't a big deal.
And how about if we amortize this entire amount over five years. Wow, that comes down to a little over $26.00 per month
Ah, what a telling comment: you are so well off that $26/month just means nothing to you. Well, it means a lot to other people.
assuming we assigned this to every single resident.
Well, that's effectively what you do when you pay for stuff through government subsidies and cross-finance it with electric service.
But let's look at this in the same way a for profit industry would and amortize this amount over 20 years and instead of the number of residents, let's use the number of businesses and households we know have already adopted the service.
But it isn't just their customers that are paying for it, it is all customers that are paying for it. If only customers were paying for it, then that $58/month service would now go up to at least $75 according to your own calculation (more likely to around $100/month), for the cheapest form of Internet through the municipal provider. That's completely uncompetitive and inefficient. Of course, your calculation is wrong because it neglects interest and other, indirect subsidies from the city. 20 years is also too long to amortize over, because a lot of the spending has gone towards things that don't last nearly as long, and because it assumes there won't be further subsidies in the future when they need more money, as they invariably will.
No, it's people like me who fought people like you to put electricity in every home, bring telecommunications to almost everywhere in this country, not to mention every other thing that made this country great while you conservatives criticized each and every one of these projects.
You suffer from delusions of grandeur and you haven't done shit.
And what I find so absolutely incredible is your unbelievable contempt for your fellow Americans. I can't remember a time when conservatives hated everybody but themselves as much as you typify.
Contempt for your fellow Americans and selfish greed is exactly what you are guilty of. You represent the wealthy class of Americans with a "let them eat cake" attitude.
Slashdot Mirror
The screening is done at boarding time not because US authorities have long arms. US authorities have no jurisdiction over who does or doesn't board in the UK. What they are saying is "we won't admit this passenger if he shows up at the US border", Since the airline doesn't want to be stuck with passengers with no place to go once they arrive at the US border, they won't even let you board the flight if you wouldn't be admitted.
Well, if that's your "actual claim", I agree completely: you clearly prefer that. You may also prefer to have your balls ritualistically shaved by Vilma. But, guess what, it's not the job of government to cater to your preferences. If you want Vilma to ritualistically shave your testicles, that's between you and Vilma, and don't come running to government if you don't like Vilma's prices or conditions.
As for the nature of roads as "public goods" and the implications, have a look here: https://mises.org/library/publ...
Which is why I said "Internet access", because that's what we're talking about. I'm not sure you are aware of it, but words have meanings, and "Internet access" means something different from "Internet".
Broadband users are a "special interest group". Whether you realize it or not, public ownership of broadband infrastructure intrinsically amounts to a handout to this group; if it didn't, public ownership would be unnecessary in the first place because private companies would already be providing the same service at the same or lower cost.
I was illustrating that the interests of broadband users and the interests of all persons that government represents are different. You argued that an act is good because it "aligns with the interests of the people". Well, the act of giving free broadband to broadband uses would be an example of something that "aligns with" the interests of broadband users, but it doesn't "align with" the interests of the entirety of all "the people" represented by government.
IT's "better" because it ensures that the people owning the road operate it according to a profit motive and according to self-contained revenu-vs-cost accounting, as opposed to operating it according to political motives and being funded through general funds. See, once you subsume something into "government", the idea that you have a "self-sustaining service" doesn't work (because you simply can't account for costs and benefits anymore).
And I'm not "opposed to" individual ownership, I'm simply pointing out that your examples of "Uncle McScrooge desiced to screw Planned Parenthood" doesn't work private ownership of infrastructure simply doesn't end up working that way.
That's obviously false: for many years, my Internet access went over wireless point-to-point, and for many more years entirely over private lines.
That's a non-sequitur.
Ah, so you are advocating handouts to a special interest group, you just refer to that group as "the people" to obscure that fact.
Giving free broadband aligns with the interests of "the people who use broadband". It just doesn't align with the interests of a lot of other people.
Private ownership of roads doesn't mean individual ownership. Most roads would be owned by associations similar to HOAs.
But, yes, private owners can do things that you disagree with. So can the government. The good thing is that with private owners, there are alternatives. When the government imposes its will, you have no choice but to comply.
I think there are lots of things government can do quite well, like fight wars, prosecute murder, and guarantee freedom of speech. What it can't do right is run a business or run the economy or protect people from their own follies.
An "auction" means an "auction", not a "no bid contract".
And "the people" would be who exactly?
Markets don't need to "correct themselves" to keep roads open.
You tell me. You said that right now "government cuts deals with certain companies to allow them to dig tranches through an entire city, using eminent domain when necessary". Whether that's true or not, and whatever the conditions may be, replace "cutting deals" with "auctioning off". There is rarely any reason for government to "cut deals" instead of making those deals available through public auction.
Europe went from all public to mostly private telecom infrastructure, and telecom service improved tremendously. Roads, actually, would benefit tremendously from privatization.
Not at all. I just gave you an example for illustration. If you want to know other examples or understand the reason why these kinds of government constructs usually don't deliver, you need to read the literature.
"Long term planning" wouldn't have prevented the president from setting annual goals leading up to the long term goal; but he didn't want to do that because he knew he wouldn't be able to meet any annual goals.
President Obama proposed ConnectED to give the impression like he is doing something for America, and to funnel funds to groups that support him politically. Putting any measurable goal a few years after the end of his presidency isn't intended to "fuck over" anybody, it's simply intended so that nobody asks unpleasant questions while Obama is still in office.
Governments don't need "eminent domain" to put in cable; they already own the streets and usually already have conduit in the ground, so that cables simply need to be pulled.
Even if your incorrect model of how cable gets into the ground were true, government didn't have to "cut deals", they could auction the right to put cable into the ground off. And, in fact, they could auction it off multiple times.
"At a loss" isn't a meaningful concept when governments and general funds are involved. What you need to look at is where the money comes from. In the case of Chattanooga, for example, $111 million came from federal tax payers and $160 million came from local electric customers, neither of which are automatically beneficiaries of the money.
What seems to happen in practice is that municipal broadband has higher costs than commercial providers, and in order to remain competitive, they lower prices to match commercial operators but then subsidize from other sources.
Conveniently, its goals are set for 2018, a few years after Obama has been out of office, so he can blame his successor.
Of course, even if it achieved its goal of "within five years, connect[ing] 99 percent of America’s students to next-generation broadband and high-speed wireless in their schools and libraries", nobody would bother demonstrating that this actually improved educational outcomes.
Doctors make more money than software developers and there is a shortage. Why doesn't the Obama administration "push" for more medical school graduates to take those high paying medical jobs? Oh, right: the AMA and their lobbyists make sure that regulations remain in place that limit the availability and training of doctors, in order to keep salaries artificially high and unemployment artificially low.
I think the kind of monopolistic practices that exist in the medical field are wrong. But when the Obama administration and Democrats subsidize computer science education and "pushes" people to go into computer science, that is also wrong: it's a direct attack on the salaries of software developers and software engineers, funded by tax dollars. Remember that next time you go to the ballot box.
I'm sorry, I tried to make the most sense out of your muddled statement of "a 200% profit on the cost of laying fiber", giving you the benefit of the doubt. What you literally said is simply wrong: the "profit on the cost of laying fiber" by itself is, of course, zero or negative, since "laying fiber" is not an activity that generates any revenue.
The price and subsidies for municipal broadband in places like Chattanooga aren't based on "assumptions", they are facts, and they contradict your naive assumptions about economics. I'm simply explaining to you why things work that way.
Comcast is a publicly traded corporation; if they had a 200% profit margin, everybody would buy their stock. In fact, Comcast's profit margin is around 10%.
Your argument is also self-contradictory, because if a company can make a 200% profit margin with a monopoly, there is obviously no need to grant it a monopoly.
And the city can't do it much cheaper at all. In fact, municipal fiber in places like Chattanooga has a higher cost than commercial wired Internet access; the only reason the sticker price is lower is because it is heavily subsidized.
The reasoning that "price = cost + profit, therefore if you take the profit motive away, things get cheaper" is faulty. What happens when you take the profit motive away is that the costs rise to match the price, not that the price drops to match the cost. And if you subsidize something, usually the cost goes up by the amount of subsidy, while the price still stays roughly the same.
Of course, they know what they are doing: they are gentrifying Tacoma, making it more attractive for well-off upper middle class folks, and making it less attractive for blue collar and lower class folks. That's all good and well; the people of Tacoma can be as classist, racist, and discriminatory as they like for all I care.
What isn't OK is to pretend that their political choices are due to some failure of free markets or corporate greed. The group of people that is selfish and greedy is the politically connected upper middle class of Tacoma, and they are making these choices for their own benefits and don't care who they screw in the process. And that's why you like these choices too.
Exactly, they can, from existing commercial providers. So, what justification is there for municipal fiber? Municipal fiber is like government subsidizing the purchase of Porsche sports cars with tax dollars.
What "monopoly"? Most cities already have multiple for-profit wired broadband providers, and even more wireless providers. Tacoma has at least five broadband providers according to the National Broadband Map (http://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers). That's in addition to wireless.
When government hands out monopolies, that is indeed not in the interest of the public, which is why government shouldn't do that.
But the idea that municipal broadband totally aligns with the interests of the public is also false. Municipal broadband forces everybody to subsidize a product that only some people want to have. In practice, municipal broadband generally has not delivered cheaper Internet access. Depending on how it's set up, municipal broadband may incur long-term financial liabilities that don't show up until decades later. And municipal broadband discourages commercial providers from providing service in an area.
The one thing municipal broadband seems to be better at than commercial services at is delivering very high speeds. That's why geeks and intellectuals like it. But, in effect, the lower costs for high speeds are subsidized by higher costs for basic Internet access, which means that those less well off are effectively subsidizing the well off who could afford to pay a premium for high speed access. Simply put, 20 Mbps for $30/month is a much better deal for most people than 1 Gbps for $70/month.
And there you have the two reasons put together why IBM and the Linux foundation are starting with Bitcoin and modifying it to suit the needs of major financial institutions.
There are other ways of dealing with this, which is again, why they are doing some development.
Actually, a much more common and simpler problem is: Alice wants to transfer $50000 to herself from the US to France. Right now, there are steep charges, banks screw you on the exchange rate, and on top of all that, they usually collect interest for a few days.
Note, of course, that Bitcoin itself makes it possible and easy to transfer money internationally avoiding banks altogether. So they really have to lower their transaction costs if they want to keep that business.
It is indeed a great idea, and not a new one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Not a big risk, because there would be stiff penalties, and eventually people would get kicked off the system. I mean, the same happened with paper stock certificates, which aren't usually moved around anymore either. In the end, you still get reliable faster clearing and recording of transactions with the new technology, at no increase in risk.
Many people care, because someone pays interest on that money.
You can't easily move large amounts of cash around, though. Try paying for a car in cash. Heck, these days, it's difficult to pay for a car with anything other than a loan.
Bitcoin largely eliminates banks as middlemen for money transfers and saves people tons of money and hassle in the process. Yes, that's a problem everybody has.
Well, I think he is wrong. Bitcoin can be easier to use than dealing with a bank.
There is nothing to "mine". They want to record transactions for other entities, entities that are not created by mining in the first place. You're not going to create a share in a corporation by mining. That's also why they need to put in some development work and can't just clone Bitcoin.
They want their own because they are recording transactions other than cash or Bitcoin transactions, like stock or business transactions.
Sea levels will have risen maybe a foot by the end of the century. Contrary to the magical thinking of some people, a foot is just a foot. The main area it makes a difference is in the height of dikes and other protective structures: a foot in sea level rise may significantly increase the probability that some water goes over such a structure if it is already marginal. That's easy to fix, though: raise such structures by a foot next time you maintain them (which is regularly).
About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level, so this really isn't a big deal.
Ah, what a telling comment: you are so well off that $26/month just means nothing to you. Well, it means a lot to other people.
Well, that's effectively what you do when you pay for stuff through government subsidies and cross-finance it with electric service.
But it isn't just their customers that are paying for it, it is all customers that are paying for it. If only customers were paying for it, then that $58/month service would now go up to at least $75 according to your own calculation (more likely to around $100/month), for the cheapest form of Internet through the municipal provider. That's completely uncompetitive and inefficient. Of course, your calculation is wrong because it neglects interest and other, indirect subsidies from the city. 20 years is also too long to amortize over, because a lot of the spending has gone towards things that don't last nearly as long, and because it assumes there won't be further subsidies in the future when they need more money, as they invariably will.
You suffer from delusions of grandeur and you haven't done shit.
Contempt for your fellow Americans and selfish greed is exactly what you are guilty of. You represent the wealthy class of Americans with a "let them eat cake" attitude.