> The public-private partnerships that created satellite communications > were necessary advancements that couldn't have been done at the time > [or now] by private corporations. Same for Arpanet and the Internet. Same > for the monopolies that exist in cable and telco broadband that allow > them to set rates based on whatever they can get away with instead of > letting the market determine rates with competition, or providing > quality broadband service [and choice] without gouging the customers, > as it is today.
Man. That's some military-grade RDF. I see you still haven't connected the dots as to why there is no significant competition in broadband in the first place. Oh well. The above is completely speculative and without any grounding in fact. *Couldn't* have been done without federal funding and *wasn't* done are 2 different things. To suggest that nothing BIG can't be done without guvmint money is a view divorced from reality. And to conveniently forget to mention that a good deal of what you list was done in the interest of countering the Soviets during the cold war is shifty at best. The military-industrial complex, which I doubt you are a terrific fan of, is at the core of all of that. Many very big things are done, every day, without a drop of guvmint funds. You simply choose to ignore them, as you do the massive waste that occurs as a result of constituent fluffing, something slimy old pols such as Robert Byrd and Ted Steven like to brag about to the folks back home. I suppose the Fed-driven housing bubble was a good thing too. It's the child-like views about government you display is as to why our country is trillions of dollars in debt, and are deeply indebted to powers that I would rather not have so much leverage over us, such as China and Saudi Arabia. You show no criteria for discriminating between easily justifiable funding, such as epidemic control and infectious disease research (you know, the kind where they _don't_ kill you on purpose), and throwing tax money willy-nilly at privately-owned broadband oligopolies because your youtube videos are choppy. As long as one can make the most tenuous of arguments that it will "add to our economic security," you'd throw the treasury doors wide open. What *wouldn't* you fund? Wait! I know. Subsidized timber for church pews. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
