Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nuchat!sugar!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Networks, who pays
Message-ID: <2231@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 15 Nov 88 17:52:29 GMT
References: <8811141443.AA06499@lll-crg.llnl.gov>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 58

In article <8811141443.AA06499@lll-crg.llnl.gov>, bowles@millar.UUCP writes:
> 
> 	From: lll-crg!wash-vax.bbn.com!KWALDMAN
> 	Subject: Networks, who pays
> 
> 	Let's NOT burden the taxpayers (i.e. you and me ) with another
> 	special interest group, that lobbies for Uncle Sam to pay for
> 	networks, as happened with roads, etc.
> 
> Forgive the tone, but this sounds like something Reagan might have written.

  Guilt by association!  What a wonderful way to debate!  Hitler liked
  chocolate, sir; does that make every chocolate lover a socialist?

> Notice how the "free market" system has improved telephone service :-( and
> ultimately, airline pricing :-( :-(

  Long-distance rates down from pre-deregulation (local service still a
  government-sponsored monopoly!); air fares down from pre-regulation.
  Or does it bother you that us common folk can afford to fly now?
> 
> What if you approached "network access" as a utility, like electricity or
> telephone service? The government doesn't DIRECTLY provide utilities, but
> it does arrange for them to be available to everyone who asks for them.

  Utilities should be free-market, too; franchised monopolies are
  anti-consumer.  Nor does government arrange from everyone to 
  have utilities; those who cannot afford monopolistic prices do
  without.  Note that these monopolies were the result of a massive
  PR campaign by the major utilities, who preferred dealing with
  bureaucrats to competing.
> 
> Utilities don't have to be based on the free market system, nor government-
> sponsored. Look at the electricity or phone companies (don't flame me on
> technicalities, please). The free market system, that is, letting private
> companies decide what to provide based on profitability, isn't enough.

  Why not?
> 
> 
> That has nothing to do with the free market system, it has to do with
> government subsidies.

  Where do those subsidies *come from*, Mr. Bowles?  From money
  stolen from me!  I resent it.  

"Freedom is still the most radical idea of all."

                        -- Nathaniel Branden


Jeff Daiell


-- 
  If a hungry man has water, and a thirsty man has bread,
  Then if they trade, be not dismayed, they both come out ahead.

                                   -- Don Paarlberg