President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Class

 

Somebody mentioned that he has no babysitter for the holiday, should be fun. I expect some classics.

 

You’re not thinking this through. The variable cost of the internet is virtually zero; the fixed cost is tremendous. Which means that when you pay for access to “the internet,” you’re pretty much simply making a contribution toward those fixed costs.

The internet you want ... today and tomorrow ... requires somebody to pony up for a lot of capital investment that nobody’s required to make. Now, you may get that investment even in a net neutrality world. But you may not. Maybe you think that’s a risk worth running. But don’t pretend it’s a risk that’s not there.

 

Aren’t download and uploads feeds generally faster in most of Western Europe and Japan. More WiFi publicly available in those areas and cheaper? Because US companies have no incentive to get faster and more available since they charge a premium for poor service and speed there’s no need to improve or invest. They can also charge a premium merely for opening the valve a little and run a faster service with no investment

 

That polonium milkshake is in some Russian deep operative’s blender as we speak.

 

Great point.

A lack of investment in the internet has been a serious problem in the era of net neutrality.

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If ISPs are having trouble delivering bandwidth, they should consider charging more money. But that’s a different discussion than net neutrality.

When I turn on my faucet, I want water, and I’ll do whatever I please with that water. Yes - the water company faces significant hurdles maintaining infrastructure. But a gallon of water is a gallon of water when it reaches my door.

I expect my high-speed pipe to deliver bytes whenever I turn on the spigot. What I do with that data is my business.

And no - I don’t trust ISPs to maintain that relationship. And I’m certainly not interested in standing by waiting for all these mythical new ISPs to emerge free-market style while the “REGULATION BAD!!!!!!!!” crowd ruins the internet.

 

In my area we basically have one option and they're ok. Nothing like the horror stories I hear about bigger ISPs, but I fear exactly what you describe.

I can appreciate the argumentation others here are saying of competition ultimately lowering prices, but is there anything stopping them from that now?

 

Zero competition. Zero reason to reduce prices.

 

Per Josh Marshall at TPM:


Very, Very Troubling
The Pentagon has announced that on November 12th the Army recovered additional remains of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, a month after his body was found. Remember that Johnson’s widow was not permitted to view his body and she even publicly speculated about what was really in her husband’s coffin. It now seems they didn’t tell her that what was in the casket was not her husband’s entire body.

Obviously, terribly things happened to bodies in war, mutilation, dismemberment, decapitation. That is war. The issue here is that it seems the Pentagon kept this information from Johnson’s wife and family.

 

It's been a month. I'm surprised the Pentagon hasn't announced the "elimination" of those responsible for the attack.

 

But why would a provider have an incentive to invest more with less regulation? The concept of a natural monopoly in some industries is a valid economic concept. The capital costs of entry serve as a barrier to entry. How many neighborhoods got an additional cable provider after rates were effectively deregulated in the 1980's? Close to zero. You were still stuck with one provider.

Because marginal costs are so low if a company raises rates it drops to the bottom line. A company could rationally decide not to invest any more of the increased profits because of the lack of a competitive threat but instead pocket the cash. That's what happened in cable television.