the regulators would have had to step in if they werent regulated, they would have just raised prices.
The regulators dont set prices, they just have the power to veto increases taht the telco wants.
NO NO NO
only in rural areas.
like 1% of the country.
My grandparents line probably was back in the 1930s, but the actual subsidy to hook everyone up has been gone for years, and 90% + of the infrastructure was paid for with private money
umm, why not let cable and the ILECs compete with eachother until wireless becomes a more viable option.
Technology is always a better solution that regulation, if possible.
You dont have nearly the barriers to wireless that you have with laying lines to every house.
The reason is that competion, in the form of having 6 different companies providing local phone service, would actually be more expensive, thats why the government regulated local phone service, but deregualated long distance/internet access. Now that the local phone company competes with cable, wireless, and even the electric company, the FCC doesn't see as much need to regulate the last mile, since the phone companies actually have viable competition now.
The problem is that LOCAL phone infrastructure is a decreasing cost industry. That means that cost should be lowest if only one company offers service. However, because a monopoly has the ability to set price (unlike someone in a competitive industry, who can't stray too far from market price) you end up with artificially high prices and lower quantity of a service. The problem with natural monopolies is that competion wont lower prices, because cost gets driven up.
where do you get the idea that the public funds POTS lines?
The universal service fee is only to connect areas
that bell companies would otherwise not wire (rural areas) because it was not profitable to run miles of lines to service half a dozen houses.
Most of you ppl living in the burbs, city, or towns do not have subsidized infrastructure.
The bells DID have to pay for it.
The government only subsidized rural areas that would otherwise not have recieved service, because it was not profitable for the bells to do so.
The local governments gave LOCAL phone companies a defacto monopoly (since they would have been a natural one) and then regulated them. Long distance is not regulated as a monopoly the same way that the local infrastructure is. Since it is far more feasible to run lines all over the country than run multiple lines into each house. The last mile is a more natrual monoploy (due to right of way issues) than long distance.
Oh yeah, thats real bright, lets try to keep people employed in places where they are no longer needed.
While we are at it, lets not adopt any technology that might cause people to loose jobs (that would be anything that makes a worker more productive)
That would really do wonders for our standard of living.
Business arent going to hire if they cant fire.
Havent you ever heard of unemployment and severance?
The point is that today, when it comes to broadband there is more than one way to do it. Power lines, cable, POTS, and numererous wireless carriers.
The fact is that there is no really good way to force baby bells to price the local loop out to competitors. The fact that the regional bell companies have control over the lines means that they will always have an advantage, unless you force them to sell the access at unreasonably low cost, which isnt fair to the bells. No matter what you do, It doesn't matter if the regulators come close, the fact is that the local loop will never be truly competitive.
So why are we engaging in this silly experiment? Why not just let the bell's have the local loops?
You should always have some competition. It would be even better if entertainment, data, and voice were all online. Thus cable and POTS would be redundant and one will likely win out over the other once VOIP and online entertainment become prevalent (the cost structure of last mile copper/fiber dictates a natural monopoly) But, and this is key, they would still be competing with the electric and wireless network providers.
I say all this as a customer of a local provider that has to lease from Qwest. And I much prefer my provider to qwest.
acutally, the fact that a contribution is just that, without any strings attached is what makes it legal If you give someone money to vote a specific way on a specific bill, that would be bribery.
Really, where are these big funding cuts that NASA has been taking?? So far as I can tell, NASA funding has increased over the past 20 years, maybe not as much as other things, but no one has seriously reduced NASA's budget. Its not as big a part of the Federal Budget because Social Spending has become the major component of the Federal Budget since the late 60s.
Yeah we arent spending nearly as much (relatively speaking, in terms of % of GDP of in real dollars) as we did during the Apollo project, but we dont have a project of that scope at NASA right now.
I guess im saying that NASA suffers from the same problems as any other mature agency. Its mostly sinkhole for science. Couldnt the NSF use that money much better, if we just wanted to do useful research?
"It's a vision thing"
First of all, money has no "natural inclinations". Even without redistribution, Europe and the US would have more equitible wealth distribution than most third world countries. Also its not your percentage of the pie that counts, its the absolute size of your slice.
The market system is defined by the following characteristics:
1. rule of law
2. individual freedom
3. reliance on the price system
Most third world countries do not have these characteristics. They have tradition based economies, very little freedom, and high levels of corruption. In fact, Europe is much more capitalistic than most third world countries. Even though it engaged in lots of redistribution, it still fits the definition of a market economy better than the "third world" does. The market system is an ideal, no one has a market only system, nor should we, since the market has failures, mostly due to "spillover effects" (indivisibility and non-excludability).
People need to get it through their heads that pay has nothing to do with your value to society. It has to do with the relative scarcity of your abilities. YOUR PAY IS NOT A FUNCTION OF YOUR SELF-WORTH. Besides, who's to say that one occupation is somehow more important than another. It takes all types to make the world go around. Price (eg. wages, rent, etc) are simply the market's way of signaling what is in short supply.
Re:The predicted chain of events according to me
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 1
Yeah but at some point, it stops being cheeper to do everything over there. True, the world is riding a wealth wave, right now the US is at the top of the wave. Now we may now be able to stay there forever, but the wave still keeps going forward. Thus our "realative" regression compared to the position of other countries, wont necessarily mean we are worse off than today, we just may not be as well off as other countries.
OTOH, the US may manage to stay at or near the top because of the social structure. As long as the american worker keeps becoming more productive, then americans will be worth employing.
Re:I invent all the time with minimal capital
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 1
actually that is capitial, and so is the specialzed knowledge that you have accumulated.
In fact, strictly speaking, very few jobs are really labor only. If you have to make decisions then you are likely using human capitial.
Re:The predicted chain of events according to me
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 1
Its not competition that caused the great depression. In fact, isolationism and high tariffs were one of the things that led to it.
This isnt a market failure though. Yeah, it sucks for any group that has competitive disadvantage, but thats hardly new. Our advantages are always changing over time, what you really are suggesting is that we stop or slow down progress because its too hard on people. Question is do we really want to do that, because it also means be lose the benefits that change offers us, many of which arent immediately obvious.
Yeah, but the world's population isnt expanding exponentially anymore. That and rising productivity is what raises the standard of living. The population is now projected to level off and even be on the decline by 2075. Infact, only the US and France are seeing population growth, among developed countries, due mostly to immigration. The fact is developed countries, are't using more than their "fair share" of resources, its just that they have managed to stabilize their population. On balance, the environment has gotten much better over the last 40 years. Yes we still have pollution, but things have gotten better, not worse in most developed countries.
The problem with this is that depending on when the work is written and when the author dies, you could end up with vastly different lengths for copyright. Accoring to the economist's brief in the Eldred case, extending copyright past 50 years produces almost no increase in the incentive to create (due to the time value of money and the fact the most of the money is made in the first couple years.)
There is one good thing about the Eldred decision, if the court says that congress can lengthen the copyright period on works that have already been copyrighted, then why cant it shorten them?:) Disney might live to regret this decision!
Its wasnt so much the bundling that got Microsoft in trouble. The legality of bundling is debatable. but the retaliatory OEM contracts were another matter. Anticompetition clauses are highly illegal. Its a shame the DOJ didnt focus more on that side of the equation, where they had much better footing.
Redhat was a profitable company before it went public iirc.
Usually when large companies start (or when small companies go public in order to become large ones) they are not profitable for a number of years, because they are sinking so much money into expansion and gaining marketshare/customers. The whole point of issuing stock is to get the money the company needs to invest in order to expand. While the expansion is happening, you have current costs but future benefits. So complaining about redhat's past "losses" isnt really a factor, investors are making a long term bet that redhat will be a profitable company. It was a given that redhat would loose money for a while. Actually its quite amazing the redhat broke even in a down market when many traditionally profitable companies have been seeing lower earnings.
Which explains why SUSE is pretty much KD centric
and why Redhat still ships KDE programs as a big part of Bluecurve. Redhat wasnt trying to obliterate KDE or GNOME, they were trying to use the best parts of each.
I dont mean to flame here, but i dont think you are being consistant. I know its popular here on slashdot to baah ashcroft and bush, but stop and think about this for a second.
Why does the USSC get accused of "judicial activism" but not the florida SC? The first FSC ruling was unamimously! overturned by the USSC. If you want to accuse the USSC of being "judical activists" then the FLSC (and the 9th circuit court of appeals for that matter) would be much more flagrant offenders. Or are you just using that as an excuse because you dont like their decision.
Let's be intellectually honest here, you like it when judicial activism gives you what you want. But its bad when the other guy does it? If you want to argue in favor of judical activism, fine. But then you cant complain when the other side does it. Please remove the log from your eye, so you can remove the splinter in the of the supreme court's.
Oh, BTW, I would have follwed stevens dissenting line. Just food for thought.
Slashdot Mirror
no RTFA they just have to offer voice services too geez, does anyone read the article??
the regulators would have had to step in if they werent regulated, they would have just raised prices. The regulators dont set prices, they just have the power to veto increases taht the telco wants.
NO NO NO only in rural areas. like 1% of the country. My grandparents line probably was back in the 1930s, but the actual subsidy to hook everyone up has been gone for years, and 90% + of the infrastructure was paid for with private money
umm, why not let cable and the ILECs compete with eachother until wireless becomes a more viable option. Technology is always a better solution that regulation, if possible. You dont have nearly the barriers to wireless that you have with laying lines to every house.
The reason is that competion, in the form of having 6 different companies providing local phone service, would actually be more expensive, thats why the government regulated local phone service, but deregualated long distance/internet access. Now that the local phone company competes with cable, wireless, and even the electric company, the FCC doesn't see as much need to regulate the last mile, since the phone companies actually have viable competition now. The problem is that LOCAL phone infrastructure is a decreasing cost industry. That means that cost should be lowest if only one company offers service. However, because a monopoly has the ability to set price (unlike someone in a competitive industry, who can't stray too far from market price) you end up with artificially high prices and lower quantity of a service. The problem with natural monopolies is that competion wont lower prices, because cost gets driven up.
But the point is that subsidies dont increase the price of food. Now tariffs on imported food are a different story.
where do you get the idea that the public funds POTS lines? The universal service fee is only to connect areas that bell companies would otherwise not wire (rural areas) because it was not profitable to run miles of lines to service half a dozen houses. Most of you ppl living in the burbs, city, or towns do not have subsidized infrastructure.
The bells DID have to pay for it. The government only subsidized rural areas that would otherwise not have recieved service, because it was not profitable for the bells to do so. The local governments gave LOCAL phone companies a defacto monopoly (since they would have been a natural one) and then regulated them. Long distance is not regulated as a monopoly the same way that the local infrastructure is. Since it is far more feasible to run lines all over the country than run multiple lines into each house. The last mile is a more natrual monoploy (due to right of way issues) than long distance.
Oh yeah, thats real bright, lets try to keep people employed in places where they are no longer needed. While we are at it, lets not adopt any technology that might cause people to loose jobs (that would be anything that makes a worker more productive) That would really do wonders for our standard of living. Business arent going to hire if they cant fire. Havent you ever heard of unemployment and severance?
The point is that today, when it comes to broadband there is more than one way to do it. Power lines, cable, POTS, and numererous wireless carriers. The fact is that there is no really good way to force baby bells to price the local loop out to competitors. The fact that the regional bell companies have control over the lines means that they will always have an advantage, unless you force them to sell the access at unreasonably low cost, which isnt fair to the bells. No matter what you do, It doesn't matter if the regulators come close, the fact is that the local loop will never be truly competitive. So why are we engaging in this silly experiment? Why not just let the bell's have the local loops? You should always have some competition. It would be even better if entertainment, data, and voice were all online. Thus cable and POTS would be redundant and one will likely win out over the other once VOIP and online entertainment become prevalent (the cost structure of last mile copper/fiber dictates a natural monopoly) But, and this is key, they would still be competing with the electric and wireless network providers. I say all this as a customer of a local provider that has to lease from Qwest. And I much prefer my provider to qwest.
in most places they do have to pay property taxes. they just dont have to pay income taxes on their income because they are nonprofit.
acutally, the fact that a contribution is just that, without any strings attached is what makes it legal
If you give someone money to vote a specific way on a specific bill, that would be bribery.
Really, where are these big funding cuts that NASA has been taking?? So far as I can tell, NASA funding has increased over the past 20 years, maybe not as much as other things, but no one has seriously reduced NASA's budget. Its not as big a part of the Federal Budget because Social Spending has become the major component of the Federal Budget since the late 60s. Yeah we arent spending nearly as much (relatively speaking, in terms of % of GDP of in real dollars) as we did during the Apollo project, but we dont have a project of that scope at NASA right now. I guess im saying that NASA suffers from the same problems as any other mature agency. Its mostly sinkhole for science. Couldnt the NSF use that money much better, if we just wanted to do useful research? "It's a vision thing"
perhaps he should read ESR's "The magic cauldron" before he talks about how HTN and CATB dont hold up to real world economic analysis.
First of all, money has no "natural inclinations". Even without redistribution, Europe and the US would have more equitible wealth distribution than most third world countries. Also its not your percentage of the pie that counts, its the absolute size of your slice. The market system is defined by the following characteristics: 1. rule of law 2. individual freedom 3. reliance on the price system Most third world countries do not have these characteristics. They have tradition based economies, very little freedom, and high levels of corruption. In fact, Europe is much more capitalistic than most third world countries. Even though it engaged in lots of redistribution, it still fits the definition of a market economy better than the "third world" does. The market system is an ideal, no one has a market only system, nor should we, since the market has failures, mostly due to "spillover effects" (indivisibility and non-excludability). People need to get it through their heads that pay has nothing to do with your value to society. It has to do with the relative scarcity of your abilities. YOUR PAY IS NOT A FUNCTION OF YOUR SELF-WORTH. Besides, who's to say that one occupation is somehow more important than another. It takes all types to make the world go around. Price (eg. wages, rent, etc) are simply the market's way of signaling what is in short supply.
Yeah but at some point, it stops being cheeper to do everything over there. True, the world is riding a wealth wave, right now the US is at the top of the wave. Now we may now be able to stay there forever, but the wave still keeps going forward. Thus our "realative" regression compared to the position of other countries, wont necessarily mean we are worse off than today, we just may not be as well off as other countries. OTOH, the US may manage to stay at or near the top because of the social structure. As long as the american worker keeps becoming more productive, then americans will be worth employing.
actually that is capitial, and so is the specialzed knowledge that you have accumulated. In fact, strictly speaking, very few jobs are really labor only. If you have to make decisions then you are likely using human capitial.
Its not competition that caused the great depression. In fact, isolationism and high tariffs were one of the things that led to it. This isnt a market failure though. Yeah, it sucks for any group that has competitive disadvantage, but thats hardly new. Our advantages are always changing over time, what you really are suggesting is that we stop or slow down progress because its too hard on people. Question is do we really want to do that, because it also means be lose the benefits that change offers us, many of which arent immediately obvious.
Yeah, but the world's population isnt expanding exponentially anymore. That and rising productivity is what raises the standard of living. The population is now projected to level off and even be on the decline by 2075.
Infact, only the US and France are seeing population growth, among developed countries, due mostly to immigration. The fact is developed countries, are't using more than their "fair share" of resources, its just that they have managed to stabilize their population. On balance, the environment has gotten much better over the last 40 years. Yes we still have pollution, but things have gotten better, not worse in most developed countries.
The problem with this is that depending on when the work is written and when the author dies, you could end up with vastly different lengths for copyright.
:)
Accoring to the economist's brief in the Eldred case, extending copyright past 50 years produces almost no increase in the incentive to create (due to the time value of money and the fact the most of the money is made in the first couple years.)
There is one good thing about the Eldred decision, if the court says that congress can lengthen the copyright period on works that have already been copyrighted, then why cant it shorten them?
Disney might live to regret this decision!
Its wasnt so much the bundling that got Microsoft in trouble. The legality of bundling is debatable. but the retaliatory OEM contracts were another matter. Anticompetition clauses are highly illegal. Its a shame the DOJ didnt focus more on that side of the equation, where they had much better footing.
Redhat was a profitable company before it went public iirc. Usually when large companies start (or when small companies go public in order to become large ones) they are not profitable for a number of years, because they are sinking so much money into expansion and gaining marketshare/customers. The whole point of issuing stock is to get the money the company needs to invest in order to expand. While the expansion is happening, you have current costs but future benefits. So complaining about redhat's past "losses" isnt really a factor, investors are making a long term bet that redhat will be a profitable company. It was a given that redhat would loose money for a while. Actually its quite amazing the redhat broke even in a down market when many traditionally profitable companies have been seeing lower earnings.
Which explains why SUSE is pretty much KD centric and why Redhat still ships KDE programs as a big part of Bluecurve. Redhat wasnt trying to obliterate KDE or GNOME, they were trying to use the best parts of each.
no, he used the LTSP
no harddrives, just cd-roms
they all boot from the server
I dont mean to flame here, but i dont think you are being consistant. I know its popular here on slashdot to baah ashcroft and bush, but stop and think about this for a second.
Why does the USSC get accused of "judicial activism" but not the florida SC?
The first FSC ruling was unamimously! overturned by the USSC. If you want to accuse the USSC of being "judical activists" then the FLSC (and the 9th circuit court of appeals for that matter) would be much more flagrant offenders.
Or are you just using that as an excuse because you dont like their decision.
Let's be intellectually honest here, you like it when judicial activism gives you what you want. But its bad when the other guy does it? If you want to argue in favor of judical activism, fine. But then you cant complain when the other side does it. Please remove the log from your eye, so you can remove the splinter in the of the supreme court's.
Oh, BTW, I would have follwed stevens dissenting line. Just food for thought.