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Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#31

Post by anamax »

neilk wrote: post #23
yummyfajitas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care is a labor intensive good. Labor is more expensive in the US than in most other parts of the world, particularly high skilled labor. A haircut or a yoga lesson also costs more in the US than in most other countries for this same reason. Further, the US healthcare market has more regulations than you think. One example: in most of the world, you buy birth control pills at the store for cheap. In the US, yo…

Health care is dramatically less expensive in nearby Canada. Moreover, health care costs are increasing in the USA faster than any other country. It is true that some US regulations do drive up costs -- you mentioned one. There are lots of other perverse incentives in the US system, because there are so many powerful players looking out for their own interests -- HMOs, hospital networks, drug manufacturers, politicia…

> In the USA, many people who criticize single-payer health care don't have the first clue about it.

Actually, many do.

About half the US population gets its healthcare via some US govt. (FWIW, The VA was just found to have given HIV to about 1800 people.) It isn't any cheaper or more effective than the private system(s).

If the US govt is capable of delivering healthcare effectively, why isn't it?

That's why I wanted to give Obama a free hand wrt the folks that US govts already serve, with no increase in per-capita budget. And, since govt health care is supposed to be cheaper, the per-capita budget goes down 5%/year for years 3-6 (which is a bit over 20%). The savings can be spent on covering additional people or other programs.

For some reason, Obamacare advocates don't like that proposal.

Here's my take. If you don't think that the next generation is going to pay your social security, what makes you think that it's going to pay your healthcare? That said, I appreciate that you're volunteering to pay mine.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#32

Post by Devilboy »

jquery wrote: post #30
_delirium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about much more infrastructure than just broadband. They have good public health-care systems, public transportation systems, etc. --- not just good intentions, but good results. What reason is there to believe that they won't do public broadband just as well?

> I'm talking about much more infrastructure than just broadband. They have good public health-care systems, public transportation systems, etc. --- not just good intentions, but good results. What reason is there to believe that they won't do public broadband just as well? Taken as a whole, they are considerably poorer on average than US citizens (especially professionals of the calibre seen on HN). I'm not convince…

I think you over-estimate how well the 'average' person in the USA is living today.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#33

Post by yason »

starnix17 wrote: post #13

Not necessarily related to this article, but doesn't Finland also require every citizen to enlist in their military for a few years? I remember reading about it in some Linus Torvalds interview, seems like an interesting policy.

In Finland, all men are subject to a mandatory service. Women can join in voluntarily but the numbers have been really low number, to no surprise.

The service can either be military training (at least 6 months) or civil service (pacifist option but it's twice as long, which is criticized internationally by Amnesty). About ten percent of young men are dismissed each year: some for a real reason (medical, psychological, other), some for "other" reasons.

While officially never admitted, the system is heavily geared towards re-enacting Finland's WW2, that is, defence against Russia, Finland's eastern neighbour. It's a collective wartime trauma in constant replay.

It's an archair system that will turn into something more modern in a couple of generations or the coming decades, if not for anything else then for the lack of funding.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#35

Post by jquery »

Devilboy wrote: post #32
jquery wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm talking about much more infrastructure than just broadband. They have good public health-care systems, public transportation systems, etc. --- not just good intentions, but good results. What reason is there to believe that they won't do public broadband just as well? Taken as a whole, they are considerably poorer on average than US citizens (especially professionals of the calibre seen on HN). I'm not convince…

I think you over-estimate how well the 'average' person in the USA is living today.

I have no illusions about how much 'average' in the USA is, but I also have no illusions about how much 'average' is in Scandinavian counties are, either. Commodity prices are somewhat higher there, which when adjusted against their income actually makes them somewhat poorer than US citizens, kind of like how $50k in New York City won't get you as far as $50k in Seattle.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#36

Post by ichverstehe »

cema wrote: post #21
_delirium wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As Milton Friedman said, you can never judge a government program by it's intentions, only the results it gets. The results, as far as I can tell, are that Scandinavian countries have very good publicly owned infrastructure.

And they have it before the law comes into effect.

Except, in Denmark, telephony companies, public transport etc. has traditionally been state-owned companies. Recently that–somewhat–changed, though.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#37

Post by _delirium »

jquery wrote: post #35
Devilboy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you over-estimate how well the 'average' person in the USA is living today.

I have no illusions about how much 'average' in the USA is, but I also have no illusions about how much 'average' is in Scandinavian counties are, either. Commodity prices are somewhat higher there, which when adjusted against their income actually makes them somewhat poorer than US citizens, kind of like how $50k in New York City won't get you as far as $50k in Seattle.

That's plausible, though there are a lot of factors and some subjectivities. Most retail goods cost more, but you also get some miscellaneous stuff free or heavily subsidized. For example, in Denmark, it's easier to get around without a car, you don't have to pay for health insurance, the state provides some degree of free child care, etc., all of which adds up to a decent amount of savings, especially for poorer people (for whom those things tend to account for a larger proportion of their budget). I think Scandinavia definitely wins on the lower-class end: a 25th-percentile-income family in Denmark, is probably much better off than a 25th-percentile-income family in the US. I'm not sure what the comparison would come out as at the 50th percentile. It might depend on where exactly in Scandinavia and the U.S. you are, and answers to some lifestyle-preference questions (for example, do you actively prefer having a car, or do you actively prefer being able to get away without having a car?). At the top end, the U.S. diverges increasingly above.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#38

Post by thirdusername »

tkahn6 wrote: post #15
alanstorm wrote: post #12

It's nice to see some governments recognizing that something which was once a luxury is now becoming a necessity as offline alternative for mandatory services (paying bills, job searching, etc) get stripped down or removed entirely.

A car used to be a luxury, now it's a necessity. Do you think owning a car is a legal right?

I'm sure Finland like Sweden has public transportation going virtually everywhere already. A car isn't a necessity, transportation is.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#39

Post by yason »

yason wrote: post #34

If they just stopped censoring the internet as well, too, we could be talking about something likening a "right".

Why was this downmodded? There's active internet censorship in Finland, see http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2008-02-18.html or google for more information.

I think it brings a quite striking contrast to the way the "internet rights" were bragged about in the news.

Re: Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

#40

Post by w1ntermute »

dantheman wrote: post #9
w1ntermute wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets and unbridled competition have a much better track record of driving prices down, making new technologies available to the masses. In industries with a high barrier to entry, the market naturally tends away from competition. Broadband is one such industry, due to the enormous initial infrastructure costs.

I don't think so, if you look at the united states the broadband industry is heavily regulated.

I never said the US broadband industry isn't regulated, I was just correcting an economic misconception of his. It is entirely true that if the broadband industry were left completely unregulated, there would be a few dominant players in the industry, and their dominance would be a result of the high barriers to entry, and not because of their inherent superiority.
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