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124 Comments
- Kevin108, on 02/12/2009, -1/+54Nobody seems to remember around 10 years ago when huge tax breaks were given to broadband providers in exchange for installing the infrastructure nationally. After a few mergers and buyouts, the original companies with which the deal was made technically no longer existed so their end of the deal was not upheld. In other words, we taxpayers have paid for this once already. Here we go again.
- Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -1/+38Unfortunately the telcos were never legally required to run fiber to every house in order to receive the tax break. The people who should be blamed are the idiot Congressmen.
- hydroplane, on 02/11/2009, -6/+39Obama gonna pay my comcast bill
- retral, on 02/12/2009, -1/+20A broadband stimulus just got passed, yet the recent capping trend will continue to take hold of the market.
***** sucks. - yeeaauuh, on 02/11/2009, -1/+18Whitespace broadband now!
- rockon4life45, on 02/12/2009, -3/+17I'm all for a dedicated fiber line for my Xbox 360. Is there a bill for that?
- mustang460, on 02/12/2009, -1/+15They have done this before and it did nothing, what they need to do is focus on ISP competition.
If one company gets subsidies in an area, and offer a level of service no one can compete with nothing will change. - badenglishihave, on 02/12/2009, -2/+16Obama has charisma. He knows how to win people over, that's why he won.
- MrColdheart, on 02/11/2009, -3/+15This isn't the first bill passed to give us a greater broadband infrastructure.
- Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -18/+29For anyone supporting this spending bill, ask yourself exactly how much did the last $800 billion stimulate the economy?
Want to see an economy stimulate itself? Give $10 - 20k tax credit to businesses for every net job created. Give a $25k tax break to anyone who buys a home this year. I guarantee you'll see an economy stimulate itself like it has a car battery attached to its nuts and more jobs created than spending $300 million on electric golf carts ever will.
By the way, what happened to Obama's "Hope and Change"? All I hear from him these days is panic and fear mongering and following the same failed "spend our way out of it" policy as Bush, except he's doing it like a kid on Ritalin. We passed on a decorated military hero with a long history of making the right decisions when no one else agreed for these chumps? - Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -3/+13Do you know what a "plan" is? You just rambled on about an idealistic world without even a single word of how to accomplish it.
And your first paragraph was so filled with teh stupid, I don't even know how to respond. Of course a job is going to pay more than $20k, what's your point? If you can hire a person for $35k and receive a $20k tax break, you're basically paying that person $15,000 for the year to increase productivity and make more money. There is not a single stable company in the US that wouldn't jump on that in an instant. Also think about every small business out there that can hire on new employees on the cheap. It's such an exciting plan that you would see a feeding frenzy.
The power of the American economy is the consumer. If you believe blindly handing money to companies with no incentive to use it for jobs, they will spend it on bonuses or debt reduction. That's the main goal of companies -- to make a profit. By telling US companies that for every net job they add to their company, they'll receive a $20 tax credit, you will see these "3 million" jobs Obama wants. Spending $300 million on electric golf carts is not.
These companies adding millions of jobs onto the rolls will result in millions of new tax payers paying taxes and increasing the federal income. And the best part is that it would only cost a fraction of what Obama is proposing. In fact, if the unrealistic sum of 10,000,000 jobs were added this year as a result, the cost to the American taxpayer would be less than $200 billion.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is actual stimulus while what Obama and Pelosi want to do is a spending spree. - DeathfireD, on 02/12/2009, -1/+11ya we all remember what happened the last time something like this was passed....the ISP's just horded the money and did nothing with it.
- SuperVepr308, on 02/12/2009, -2/+11My chances of ever seeing FIOS are still slim (and getting slimmer). DSL til' death I suppose.
- Rothbardosaurus, on 02/12/2009, -3/+11This whole practice of blaming "deregulation" for economic problems is getting old. Our economy is one of the most heavily regulated in the world. If the government takes over finance and medicine, it will be functionally indistinguishable from a Nazi or Soviet system.
The things Congress calls "deregulation" never actually are. When they do remove a regulation, they leave others in place that encourage the misuse of the new freedom. Remember that the banks made their bad loans because the Federal Reserve and Congress ordered them to through the Community Reinvestment Act and other bad laws. I'm not sure how they were "deregulated" when laws were still forcing them to make bad business decisions.
There are a host of regulations peripheral to the ISP industry (FCC monopolization of the broadcast spectrum, for example) that have prevented lower-cost startups from competing with the shrinking number of broadband providers. And the less you tax something, the more profitable it becomes, meaning a more vibrant market. - Skod, on 02/12/2009, -2/+9The Ice Stone has melted.
- CalcProgrammer1, on 02/12/2009, -2/+9Just for Xbox 360? Live works fine on regular connections, I want a dedicated fiber line for torrents!
- TheVirus, on 02/12/2009, -9/+15You had me until you said 'decorated military hero' and 'making the right decisions'. Close, though.
- Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -0/+5No, that's the kind of economics that you learn in schools like Berkeley -- Can't-See-Past-Your-Nose-nomics 101.
My plan: Gives incentives to companies across the board to hire new employees for the long term.
Your Plan: Give incentives to an industry that mainly hires illegal day laborers temporarily who traditionally send their money out of the country.
What is your long term plan? (i.e. Your plan that extends past next week) - shauncorleone, on 02/12/2009, -0/+5While it's certainly not true for all Obama's supporters, for a lot of people the election was basically a political version of American Idol.
- JQP123, on 02/12/2009, -2/+7Ok, so the country as a whole is broke. So what's the answer? Print more money and hand it out like candy ... but only to big corporations and their overpaid CEOs. In other words, when you find yourself in a hole, dig deeper.
Common sense says that a real solution can't be this easy. This is a short term, feel good thing that in the long run will only make things even worse.
Basically, what government is doing here is de-valuing the dollar. Your salary will soon buy less stuff than it did before. The same goes for any money you have saved. You've just got a pay cut and someone stole your money out of the bank and you didn't even know it. - minnecrapolis, on 02/12/2009, -0/+5@Tao
It would be nice if that is how it worked. Sadly, it doesn't.
What happens is that the "plan" creates millions of temporary construction jobs but there is no money left for supplies to repair roads.
Even if there were, this is a band-aid on a severed artery. Those jobs will go away once the work is completed. Mass layoffs once again and the economy begins to crash once again.
Temporary jobs mean temporary solution.
The real way to stimulate the economy is to give every working American their income taxes back (for 2008 and possibly 2007). Also, suspend income taxes for 2009.
I'm not talking about tax breaks, I am talking about tax returns. Tax breaks are only going to help those that are currently spending, not those that are holding on to every cent.
I know a lot of people say that people will just save the money but I really don't see that being the case. People want to spend, they just can't. Give people the money and you may avoid some foreclosures, create some more jobs and save some small businesses by increasing the flow of income for those businesses.
Also, any bank/mortgage company taking bailout money should be required to stop all foreclosures and be forced to try to work out a payment plan (within reason) with those in danger of being foreclosed upon.
All banks taking bailout money should be required to lower their fees to reasonable amounts - monthly service fees, transfer fees, overdraft fees, below account limit fees, etc.
Any business taking bailout money should be required to stop all outsourcing.
Just a few ideas of my own. - Renfamous, on 02/13/2009, -0/+4Oh Lord Tao I lol'd hard. I haven't heard idealist painfully-backward economic rhetoric like that since my Econ 100 recitations freshman year. By your logic, we should stop giving people welfare checks because "for all we know" they'll spend it on an X-box instead of baby formula.
I certainly hope that you don't have an economics degree, or if you do that you didn't pay too much for it. - PeppermintPig, on 02/12/2009, -0/+4but, but, but free internets!!!??
- Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -0/+4Oh? Please explain in detailed terms how the last stimulus pacakge "helped immensely." Detailed examples shouldn't be too difficult, right? Show me a single business that was saved from bankruptcy by that bailout.
We can't spend our way out of this problem, that's how we got into this mess. You don't save a drowning child in a pool by giving him a glass of water to drink.
People like you are the ones who are destroying our country. Those who believe that living above our means is a positive and sustainable policy. - markhere, on 02/12/2009, -1/+5What happens when the world stops buying from us? We have a global economy and a global problem. We need to change with the times and create lasting value. Waterparks and public works like big dig are myopic and unsustainable. Let the private sector build them. Spend federal money to push technology into new spaces that private sector can use to create jobs.
- chanop, on 02/12/2009, -0/+4They're cutting out the $15,000 tax credit for new home buyers. They're also cutting the allready existing $7,500 tax credit. This new bill doesn't do ***** for working/middle class except created a few temporary jobs.
- minoss, on 02/12/2009, -4/+8The banking industry is the most highly regulated industry in the entire economy. Saying this was a failure of deregulation is incorrect on so many levels. This was a failure of the regulated market.
- DeathfireD, on 02/12/2009, -0/+3Comcast in the US already does that Murdats. They count your download and upload bandwidth together. If you're over 250GB you get a warning. Second offense you lose your cable.
- kaelyiesta, on 02/12/2009, -0/+3Totalitarianism contains socialism, and socialism often tends towards totalitarianism anyhow due to the nature of control exerted upon the governed.
But you're right, they aren't one and the same. One is a lesser form of slavery. - Egoist, on 02/13/2009, -0/+3"For all we know people will put their income tax in a bank or spend it on foreign products. For all we know the companies who get tax breaks will use it to hire foreign workers. How does that help the economy?"
Didn't you say earlier that you wanted to stimulate an industry that hires mostly illegal day laborers who don't pay ANY taxes?
Tao, really, just stop. Your arguments aren't even coherent anymore. - kaelyiesta, on 02/12/2009, -0/+3Not quite. They built infrastructure, then created a monopoly(or oligopoly I guess) over it by charging other businesses for the service they couldn't ever be allowed to reimplement themselves due to the disparity of initial resources and control.
Then they sat on that monopoly and used the money to further influence the FCC and congress to help them maintain their control. - Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -2/+5Is that your way of telling us that you're incapable of admitting that you were wrong?
- Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -5/+8Which part was factually incorrect?
- Egoist, on 02/12/2009, -0/+3Let Wall Street have a freakout attack. The longer we keep this bubble afloat, the worst it's going to be for us all.
- inactive, on 02/12/2009, -3/+6Torrents work fine on regular connections, i want a dedicated fiber for porn!
- cam0man, on 02/12/2009, -0/+3I was all excited about the fact that I'd be able to upgrade from 6mbps to 16mbps through comcast, til I found out that both have the same 250gb cap. wtf is the point then? they told me that for my usage I'd need to pay $2,000 a month.
- DeathfireD, on 02/12/2009, -0/+3The freak out attack is because Wallstreet is seeing the overvalued stock dropping back down to it's true actual value. Tossing bailout money at company's was an attempt to keep the prices at that overpriced value that's been going up since 2001. In the end it's only a short term solution and will only cause the market to drop again in the future, like it already has been.
The only difference between Bush's bailout and Obama's plan is that the bailout was an attempt to keep company's afloat where as Obama's is opening up jobs for people in the hopes that they will spend the money that they make. The problem with Obama's plan is that the jobs are temporary and like most temp work people will save the money they make. Once the work's done that's it, those people that did the work made some money but didn't retain a long term job. The economy will go up a bit like the bailout but will once again go back to the way it has been and Obama will once again have to rethink his future economical plans and try and make a long term solution. - akchrs, on 02/12/2009, -1/+4What an interesting concept. I would call this concept Transparency.
- inactive, on 02/12/2009, -1/+3I don't understand.
- esc27, on 02/13/2009, -0/+2Internet access is quickly becoming a need (if it isn't one already) with the wealth of information online and the increasing difficulty of working with companies by mail and even phone. But that aside, back in the day was electricity a need? Phones? People were getting by without it.
Dial-up internet is fairly useless these days. Nearly every site is designed for broadband and would take a very long time to load (if it does at all) on dial-up. Not 3Mbs or even 1.5Mbs, but at least 768 kbs (recognized as broadband by the FCC) makes a real difference.
"If a 3m download speed is that important to you, don't live in the sticks."
That's a rather shallow and ignorant remark. Would you say the same thing about medical care, electricity, water, etc. Say, "if you don't want to get raped, join a convent."
Maintaining a line is much less expensive than building it. Once in place the normal fees associated with access should be enough. Again, look at electricity, those lines are still there and still provide power. - TheVirus, on 02/12/2009, -8/+10Both. He's not a military hero for being a POW. And he's definitely made poor decisions proven by his choice for VP. I'm not going to argue this, because I just don't care enough, maybe someone else can argue the points for me. McCain is off his rocker and has admitted that he has no economic experience or ideas.
- doubl3d, on 02/12/2009, -1/+3you suck
- geekee, on 02/12/2009, -0/+2"It might not even be borrowed."
Are you on crack? The govt was running a deficit befoie the "economic stimulus" pkg was passed. By what logic can you determine the money won't be borrowed. - dandonia, on 02/12/2009, -0/+2$7 bil of your money - wow, how much do you earn to be paying so much in tax?
- lead2thehead, on 02/12/2009, -2/+4The federal government spends billions more than they bring in each year. They make up the difference by borrowing money, primarily from Chinese banks. So every time a politician increases spending, we go further into debt with China. After 25 years of doing this, we are now $10 trillion dollars in debt.
- PeppermintPig, on 02/12/2009, -0/+2By giving them this money, you are CREATING privileged monopolies.
- Swivelstick, on 02/12/2009, -6/+8Are you trying to be sarcastic or are you really really dumb?
- Egoist, on 02/13/2009, -0/+2So you're not basing your argument on data and facts, but on a feeling?
You really are a Liberal. - wtfbatman, on 02/12/2009, -0/+2Maybe because 10 years ago most of us were anywhere from 6-11 years old?
- CogitatorX, on 02/12/2009, -1/+3That's true but the plus side is that it links China to us and any action they took against the USA (military or economic) would wreck it's economy as well.
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