Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

online.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 70 posts

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#31

Post by Samuel_Michon »

harshreality wrote: post #20
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Even though there are many political parties[1] in the US, there are only two that have the funds and mindshare to win presidential elections. I like that independents like Bernie Sanders[2] and Angus King[3] manage to get into the senate, it provides a little bit of hope for change. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_th... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders…

The two major parties are propped up by the mathematics of voting, and funds. I believe mindshare is a symptom of those two things. http://www.rangevoting.org

Interesting site, but the process is more complex than I think it needs to be. Try instant-runoff voting[1], Australia already switched to it: http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-alternative-vote-explained.h...

Of course, this assumes that people know how to vote for the parties best for them. Which comes down to quality education and good news sources. You’d have to ban paid political ads, SuperPACs, lobbyists.

Then there’s the matter of voting fraud. Voting computers shouldn’t be used at all, all voting should be done on paper and the ballot design should be standardized. Voter registration should be done away with. On election day, all public transport should be free and workers should get at least one hour paid leave to go out and vote.

(None of these things are going to happen anytime soon, but I think they would help.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#32

Post by ordinary »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #21
greghinch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, the WSJ has just another soundboard for Rupert Murdoch's FUD. Doing whatever they can do to make a story more polarizing.

(EDIT: Disregard the following, see ordinary's reply) Not that I disagree about the WSJ, but it seems that the lobbyist part of the headline was added by the submitter.

The article's header says "Obama to Name Wheeler to Head FCC", but the HTML title attribute says "Obama to Name Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC".

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#33

Post by CrazedGeek »

ordinary wrote: post #32
CrazedGeek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(EDIT: Disregard the following, see ordinary's reply) Not that I disagree about the WSJ, but it seems that the lobbyist part of the headline was added by the submitter.

The article's header says "Obama to Name Wheeler to Head FCC", but the HTML title attribute says "Obama to Name Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC".

Oh hey, it does. Apologies. (Viewing title tags is inconvenient on a phone.)

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#34

Post by mseebach »

Qualman wrote: post #9

Does being a former lobbyist make him inherently evil, though? I'm no fan of lobbying from any aspect, but it's shallow to judge his priorities off of this one piece of his career -- especially with the article highlighting his history in favor of the government regulating telecom.

As a lobbyist, he headed the National Cable Television Association, and later the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Why might cable TV operators, cell operators and Internet providers would pay someone good money to lobby for more government regulation? What business purpose could that possibly serve?

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#35

Post by emiliobumachar »

tantalor wrote: post #25
supercanuck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the free market prevent the Fertilizer plant from exploding and killing all those people?

The industry under discussion (communications) generally does not risk lives, i.e., no catastrophe when you screw up. Some types of industry do risk lives. Don't confuse safety regulations with other business regulations. They serve completely different purposes. We should regulate the hell out of fertilizer depots, power generators, medical software, flight. For good reason.

Communications can, in fact, kill people. High-intensity electromagnetic emissions. Those cell towers in the middle of the city have to be very thougthfully planned and installed.

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#36

Post by pyre »

icelancer wrote: post #27
supercanuck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the free market prevent the Fertilizer plant from exploding and killing all those people?

How did the regulated market prevent it from blowing up?

How did a law against murder prevent murders from happening?

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#37

Post by mseebach »

kalleboo wrote: post #29
duncan_bayne wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion that industry needs regulating keeps ending us up in one disaster after another. Who was it who said "when buying and selling are legislated, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators?"

That would be an interesting experiment - fully unregulated airwaves. Imagine AT&T jamming Verizon's 3G signal, private transmitter hijacking terminals, etc.

Well, in the jamming case, Verizon would probably jam AT&T back. So neither is getting any revenue, and they are left to work out a truce or face bankruptcy.

There exists swathes of practically unlicensed spectrum, such as ham radio and 2.4GHz. While regulation exists, large scale enforcement is pretty much unheard of, yet it works pretty well.

The big cellular telecom standards (GSM and CDMA) assume a very orderly environment (contrasting the 801.11x standards that are more adaptive), so they would probably look different in a world with unregulated airwaves.

EDITED to add: For the purpose of such a thought experiment, It's not practical to imagine what would happen if the current GSM 2G and 3G spectrum just became unlicensed overnight. There is a huge infrastructure investment, both on the carrier and consumer ends that would become worthless, and this is clearly undesirable. Rather, imagine a block of airwaves (say, ex-military or analogue broadcast TV) being released with zero or minimal regulation (no exclusivity, basically).

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#38

Post by snikolic »

mseebach wrote: post #34
Qualman wrote: post #9

Does being a former lobbyist make him inherently evil, though? I'm no fan of lobbying from any aspect, but it's shallow to judge his priorities off of this one piece of his career -- especially with the article highlighting his history in favor of the government regulating telecom.

As a lobbyist, he headed the National Cable Television Association, and later the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Why might cable TV operators, cell operators and Internet providers would pay someone good money to lobby for more government regulation? What business purpose could that possibly serve?

To be fair, those were actually fairly progressive and disruptive industries when was involved in lobbying for them.

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#39

Post by bcoates »

kalleboo wrote: post #29
duncan_bayne wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion that industry needs regulating keeps ending us up in one disaster after another. Who was it who said "when buying and selling are legislated, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators?"

That would be an interesting experiment - fully unregulated airwaves. Imagine AT&T jamming Verizon's 3G signal, private transmitter hijacking terminals, etc.

The ISM bands are vastly less regulated. It's some of the most useful spectrum because of that.

Re: Obama to Name Tom Wheeler, a Former Lobbyist, to Head FCC

#40

Post by dredmorbius »

icelancer wrote: post #27
supercanuck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the free market prevent the Fertilizer plant from exploding and killing all those people?

How did the regulated market prevent it from blowing up?

If you've been paying any attention at all to the West, TX, story, you'd be aware that the regulators were largely defundend and eviscerated by anti-regulation interests.

Gov. Perry got a little steamed when his "Business is Booming" campaign was highlighted:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/perry-disgusted-by-ca...

Edit: better story link to cartoon.

Post reply on HN