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Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

nytimes.com

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Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#31

Post by brohoolio »

wernercd wrote: post #25
stephengillie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do arguments like this continue to be made, despite many cities already having municipal broadband? This anti-governmental prejudice is tiring. Governments are made of people - what makes you trust those people less than other people?

Because, by and large, I don't trust people? I love my country and for the most part trust the Government... but on the same token - you'd have to be blind not to see how inefficient they are compared to private organizations (IE: Post Office compared to FedEx. Private Hospitals compared to the VA.) You'd also have to be blind to not see blatant growth and abuses of privileges. The ACA growing government meddling in…

Post office has a slightly different mission than fedex. The post office connects the entire country. Which means you’ll have losses in remote places. But the country as a whole benefits from having that infrastructure in place to be able to send a letter to everyone.

In terms of private hospitals you’ve obviously never had to pay a bill from them. They engineer the system to maximize profits, which is different than getting people out the door as efficiently as possible.

Large institutions like the post office / va have problems. I’d argue large companies often have similar problems. But the distinction between what problems these orgs are solving and what private companies are solving is a very important distinction.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#32

Post by mikeash »

wernercd wrote: post #25
stephengillie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do arguments like this continue to be made, despite many cities already having municipal broadband? This anti-governmental prejudice is tiring. Governments are made of people - what makes you trust those people less than other people?

Because, by and large, I don't trust people? I love my country and for the most part trust the Government... but on the same token - you'd have to be blind not to see how inefficient they are compared to private organizations (IE: Post Office compared to FedEx. Private Hospitals compared to the VA.) You'd also have to be blind to not see blatant growth and abuses of privileges. The ACA growing government meddling in…

The Post Office will send a letter to the other side of the country for 49 cents. How much would that cost from FedEx? They’re pretty competitive for packages too.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#33

Post by yardie »

wernercd wrote: post #25
stephengillie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do arguments like this continue to be made, despite many cities already having municipal broadband? This anti-governmental prejudice is tiring. Governments are made of people - what makes you trust those people less than other people?

Because, by and large, I don't trust people? I love my country and for the most part trust the Government... but on the same token - you'd have to be blind not to see how inefficient they are compared to private organizations (IE: Post Office compared to FedEx. Private Hospitals compared to the VA.) You'd also have to be blind to not see blatant growth and abuses of privileges. The ACA growing government meddling in…

I see someone has swallowed the right wing propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The VA treats vets in all sorts of conditions. Rich, homeless, retired, and recently discharged. Btw, all the bad news you hear from the VA, like Walter Reed, that comes from the privately contracted section of the hosipital. You know the guys who have a financial incentive to deliver the shittiest service contractual allowed.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#34

Post by rayiner »

chrisper wrote: post #20
wernercd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the government should be trusted with that infrastructure/information and they won't become a bloated, red-tape laden mess? I think the majority of people agrees there needs to be changes in things... but putting "government" in charge of the backbone of the internet? Would definitely not a change for the better. Personally... I think there should be one of two rules: Companies can't own content AND infrastru…

Here in Switzerland the fiber is owned by the regional utility company (power company for example). I think by law they have to allow every ISP to use it. Now everyone (or almost everyone) in Switzerland can have fiber internet with gbit up and down.

About 30% of households in Switzerland have access to fiber, versus 25% in the US. Switzerland doesn’t impose unbundling on fiber. The major fiber operator, Swisscom, owns its own lines.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#35

Post by baldfat »

wernercd wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #9

While we're at it, can we put some extra fiber optic cables in the ground, and this time let the government own all of it?

Because the government should be trusted with that infrastructure/information and they won't become a bloated, red-tape laden mess? I think the majority of people agrees there needs to be changes in things... but putting "government" in charge of the backbone of the internet? Would definitely not a change for the better. Personally... I think there should be one of two rules: Companies can't own content AND infrastru…

Government does many things well.

Protecting citizens freedoms, roads, airports and ports, education for all, social safety net (medicaid and social security), supplying fuel, CDC, protecting the environment, 911, policing, science and research funding.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#36

Post by rayiner »

Of course the NYT would find a way to make a disaster caused by bad public governance all about evil “deep-pocketed” companies. The American Society of Civil Engineers rates our water infrastructure a “D.” That’s due to chronic underfunding, which in turn is caused by municipal governments setting water and sewer rates far too low to maintain and improve the existing infrastructure. Water infrastructure is a case study in how poor political discipline can result in disastrous utility regulation, with disasterous results.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#37

Post by bob_theslob646 »

maxerickson wrote: post #17
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history Can you provide a source ? The only thing I could find is this >The Institute for Supply Management said Friday that its manufacturing index slipped to 58.2 last month from 58.7 in October. Anything above 50 signals that U.S. factories are expanding. American manufacturing…

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outp... Search "us manufacturing output history" if that isn't sufficient. It makes plenty of sense, even if the postwar era was a boom, the US population is much larger and external markets are much larger and richer.

It is not sufficient. That article is talking about manufacturing being the most dominant share in terms of sector. I am not disagreeing with that whatsoever. People complain about that because there are less jobs in manufacturing then there has ever been before.(Processes get more efficient, do not need as many people. This is a fact and not necessarily a bad thing.)

That marketwatch article is somewhat skewed because it only talks about the US domestically versus how it does relative to the world.

How about you take a stab at looking through this.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf page 5

>Congressional Research Service: U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective

>The United States’ share of global manufacturing activity declined from 28% in 2002, following the end of the 2001 U.S. recession, to 16.5% in 2011. Since then,the U.S. share has risen to 18.6%, the largest share since 2009. These estimates are based on the value of each country’s manufacturing in U.S. dollars; part of the decline in the U.S. share was due to a 23% decline in the value of the dollar between 2002 and 2011, and part of the rise since 2011 is attributable to a stronger dollar

>The U.S. share of global manufacturing value added has declined over time, from 29% in the early 1980s to 18.6% in 2015 (see Figure 2). Similarly, Japan’s share of global manufacturing value added has contracted from a peak of 21.5% in 1995 to around 7% now, and Germany’s has fallen from 10.4% (in 1992, just after the incorporation of the former German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany) to 5.9%.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#38

Post by rayiner »

baldfat wrote: post #35
wernercd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the government should be trusted with that infrastructure/information and they won't become a bloated, red-tape laden mess? I think the majority of people agrees there needs to be changes in things... but putting "government" in charge of the backbone of the internet? Would definitely not a change for the better. Personally... I think there should be one of two rules: Companies can't own content AND infrastru…

Government does many things well. Protecting citizens freedoms, roads, airports and ports, education for all, social safety net (medicaid and social security), supplying fuel, CDC, protecting the environment, 911, policing, science and research funding.

Not our government. We spend more on education per student than all OECD nation’s but Switzerland, and have middle of the pack results. Go to Japan or Germany and say we’re doing a good job with our roads. Our municipal governments are among the worst polluters—antiquated sewer systems dump immense amounts of untreated sewage into our waterways each year.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#39

Post by justinph »

amelius wrote: post #9

While we're at it, can we put some extra fiber optic cables in the ground, and this time let the government own all of it?

Doesn't make a lot of practical sense.

* Sewer & water can be done in a piecemeal fashion, whereas fiber requires complicated & precise connections to make work. Not to mention, needs connection to the electrical grid.

* Sewer & water pipes are typically much deeper underground, not necessary for fiber which doesn't freeze.

* Running fiber along a pipe would be difficult, at best. Typically an underground pneumatic pipe trenching tool pulls flexible copper pipe behind it, for water or gas. Pulling fiber along with it on the outside gets complicated or requires some new type of pipe.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#40

Post by chrisper »

rayiner wrote: post #34
chrisper wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Switzerland the fiber is owned by the regional utility company (power company for example). I think by law they have to allow every ISP to use it. Now everyone (or almost everyone) in Switzerland can have fiber internet with gbit up and down.

About 30% of households in Switzerland have access to fiber, versus 25% in the US. Switzerland doesn’t impose unbundling on fiber. The major fiber operator, Swisscom, owns its own lines.

Looking here: https://www.bakom.admin.ch/bakom/en/homepage/telecommunicati...

It seems Swisscom owns some lines, but not all of it. Like some of Swisscom Internet goes on lines that is not owned by them.

I guess a lot of the households in the mountains and other large terrains do not have fiber.

If you look here: https://map.geo.admin.ch/?topic=nga&mobile=false&lang=en&bgL...

Plenty of households have >=100 Mbit/s Internet. This map pretty much covers the same area as "where most Swiss people live."

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