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

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

#61

Post by rayiner »

mseebach wrote: post #41
snikolic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So why did they need lobbying for more regulation? Why did they turn into complacent monopolies?

Lobbying is just a way of telling the government what regulatory environment you think best suits your industry. At the time he was lobbying, the push was for deregulation, which was the right call.

As for why they have become complacent monopolies: that is the nature of telecom (natural monopolies). There is unlimited economics of scale, so the most efficient state is E.G. For Verizon to keep growing until its the only wireless carrier.

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

#62

Post by jpadkins »

nano111 wrote: post #52
jacoblyles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most regulated industries in America are banking, medicine, and education. It seems to be doing a good job. Meanwhile internet technology is among the least regulated. Someone needs to do something to ensure a vibrant competitive landscape.

if the banks and wallstreet had it their way, there would not be many regulations

demonstrably false. The major wall street banks have lobbied for arcane regulation for decades. See of all the inclusions at their request into the Dowd-Frank bill, or SarbOx, etc. The federal reserve act of 1913 was the a major step up in regulation of the banking sector, and was primarily pushed by the largest banks at the time. Former lobbyists have stated that their stated strategy is to create barriers to entry in legal compliance costs so smaller competitors can't effectively compete.

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

#63

Post by altcognito »

rayiner wrote: post #8

It's interesting what the headline chooses to mention. He was a lobbyist from 1979-1984, but he's also a venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has founded multiple telecommunications companies: "Mr. Wheeler is a managing director at Core Capital Partners, a Washington investment firm with $350 million under management. He has helped to oversee the firm’s investments in an array of start-ups and small- to mid-size t…

I would also point out that on the face of it, Lobbyists aren't evil. They are effectively part of your representation in government and should be well-informed in their special interest.

What is evil is when they are granted inappropriate influence over the legislation, regulation and appropriation.

And that problem pretty much starts with campaign donations but has roots in other areas as well.

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

#64

Post by tantalor »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #35
tantalor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wikipedian_protester.png

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

#65

Post by w1ntermute »

mseebach wrote: post #42
w1ntermute wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing false about that. It was your mistake for assuming that voting for Obama wouldn't also result in lobbyists being put in charge. As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another. It's like expecting your local cable monopoly to be a better ISP because they have to compete with your local telephone monopoly for Internet subscribers.

Democracies tend to gravitate towards a binary choice, regardless of the actual number of parties. This happens all the time in Europe. Don't mistake the fact that we have social policies different from those in the US for diversity, it is very much a cross-party consensus.

I never suggested that we should imitate Europe, did I? That would lead to even worse economic problems than we already have.

I just think that we need to introduce more competition so that the parties are forced to compete on concrete goals and actions, rather than lofty ideals that are more suited to a sports match (which is what American politics often feels like).

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

#66

Post by mseebach »

w1ntermute wrote: post #65
mseebach wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracies tend to gravitate towards a binary choice, regardless of the actual number of parties. This happens all the time in Europe. Don't mistake the fact that we have social policies different from those in the US for diversity, it is very much a cross-party consensus.

I never suggested that we should imitate Europe, did I? That would lead to even worse economic problems than we already have. I just think that we need to introduce more competition so that the parties are forced to compete on concrete goals and actions, rather than lofty ideals that are more suited to a sports match (which is what American politics often feels like).

No, I was reacting to this:

> As long as we have only 2 parties, they will have no incentive to do anything different from one another.

In Europe, there are many more parties, but that doesn't make politics less of a two-team sports match.

My point was that you've identified the wrong culprit in the two-party system.

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

#67

Post by jacoblyles »

livnev wrote: post #51
jacoblyles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most regulated industries in America are banking, medicine, and education. It seems to be doing a good job. Meanwhile internet technology is among the least regulated. Someone needs to do something to ensure a vibrant competitive landscape.

Yes, your comment is witty, but I think it's critically flawed. Firstly, medicine and education should be public services, in the sense that their management should have the imperative of increasing living conditions for the populace rather than generating capital. It can also be added that arguably, the purpose of banking is to increase living standards, instead of being a business for those that control it. Secondl…

>"in the sense that their management should have the imperative of increasing living conditions for the populace rather than generating capital"

Couldn't this be said of the food industry, the clothing industry, etc.? How are you not arguing for communism?

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

#69

Post by yekko »

numo16 wrote: post #6
josh2600 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter who you vote for; lobbyists already control the Internet.

> It doesn't matter who you vote for; lobbyists already control the Government. FTFY

If voting actually changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

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

#70

Post by harshreality »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #31
harshreality wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Not for single-winner elections. STV (IRV) isn't so bad for multi-winner elections, but for single-winner elections it fails monotonicity. (It's difficult to design a multi-winner election system that's truly bad.) You think Florida in 2000 was bad? If there's a significant election skewed by IRV's problems, the population will want to burn the people who chose it at the stake.

http://www.rangevoting.org/rangeVirv.html

http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Assess...

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/irv.html

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/irv.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system_criterion#Compli...

IRV is a hack to incorporate run-off voting into the first-round voting system, and run-off voting is lacking.

In a political system as dysfunctional as the U.S., allowing voters to express true voting preferences is more important than having a voting system that will lead to only marginally better outcomes. Once true voting preferences are known, the political parties will have to adjust to accommodate that. As long as the voting system encourages some people to hide their true voting preferences, those preferences cannot push the two dominant political parties to change their platforms.

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