stock market

[callmeslick]

what was your point, then?

[flip]

My point was that certain social safety nets are a neccessity now. No way around them and they should be protected and strengthened at all costs.

[woodchip]

Safety nets are great. July saw the biggest one year increase in new food stamp recipients. Of course the USDA didn't release this figure until after the election. I can't wait to see how many more people are forced into food stamps in the next four years.

[flip]

Lol, my fear, and I have no timeframe, is all of us. Small business is being choked because the corporations want total control of commerce. It's exactly why we will also go towards a one world currency, because in that no one can manipulate the value of their currency such as China has been doing for years. I got no confidence in the idea mind you, I just see it as the direction we are going. It's like Spidey said in another thread, there is an ever increasing gulf between the people here and those in governance.

[callmeslick]

the gulf is between those that have plenty of resources and those that don't(rich and poor is a bit of an oversimplification). It's been widening for nearly 35 years, at an ever-increasing rate. The political class merely answers to the 'haves', that is all.

[Spidey]

Maybe I should have made my post more clear…

tc was talking about things that only “looked” like socialism, and Thorne asked for examples.

I gave 2 examples, one being actual socialism IE: rural electrification and roads & bridges which only look like socialism.

Rural electrification was definitely socialism, because it was done in the name of “fairness” & “equality”

Roads and bridges on the other hand are just public works projects that look like socialism, but in reality are not.

The infrastructure itself is neither capitalism or socialism.

Capitalism and socialism two of the most over/misused words of all time.

[flip]

Yeah, for lack of a better word but I think more accurate than anything else, is world wide Oligarchy.

[Tunnelcat]

Maybe I should have made my post more clear…

tc was talking about things that only “looked” like socialism, and Thorne asked for examples.

I gave 2 examples, one being actual socialism IE: rural electrification and roads & bridges which only look like socialism.

Rural electrification was definitely socialism, because it was done in the name of “fairness” & “equality”

Roads and bridges on the other hand are just public works projects that look like socialism, but in reality are not.

The infrastructure itself is neither capitalism or socialism.

Capitalism and socialism two of the most over/misused words of all time.

Was the Rural Electrification Act a bad thing, even if it was "socialistic"? Private enterprise wasn't going to step up and build the infrastructure because it wouldn't have been profitable. Where would that left everyone in rural areas? They are potential customers after all. Is it their fault they live in the boonies? There certainly wouldn't have been a lot of rural customers to buy electric appliances or products from that vaunted private enterprise after WWII without that little bit of socialism to lay the foundation.

On the same vein, why isn't there a similar Act for creating a good, reliable high speed internet infrastructure either? That's becoming as important as electricity to function in the modern world. I don't see the telecoms spending any of their money on upgraded internet infrastructure in rural and small towns at all. And yet, they want us to do everything over the net. It's kind of a which came first chicken and egg thing. They want to sell us products that run on a race track, when most of us still live on dirt roads, metaphorically speaking.

[Spidey]

No, I think it was a good thing.

[Tunnelcat]

So what's wrong with more things like that? I gave the internet infrastructure idea. Would that be bad socialism just to get our country at least on par with Japan? Private enterprise isn't really stepping up to the plate.

[Spidey]

Because they cost money, and should only be done if needed. There is no need for everyone in the country to have the bandwidth to watch movies on the web, that’s a luxury not a necessity.

Then after you get your awesome taxpayer supplied fat internet pipeline, what luxury would you expect the taxpayers to pay for next?

[flip]

I think what pisses me off the most is the copper backbone was built entirely with taxpayer money, and now we have to pay through the nose to use it. That's socialism gone very bad.

[Ferno]

no flip, that's actually a socialism-based project packaged up and sold off to the highest bidder to be privatized.

[flip]

Yup. We finance it socially, then they take control of it and charge us again and call it capitalism. Lol.

[Tunnelcat]

Because they cost money, and should only be done if needed. There is no need for everyone in the country to have the bandwidth to watch movies on the web, that’s a luxury not a necessity.

Then after you get your awesome taxpayer supplied fat internet pipeline, what luxury would you expect the taxpayers to pay for next?

I don't watch movies on line. It'd be nice if I could. If I had that fat pipeline, some company somewhere would be selling me a movie or two and making some money off of it, i.e., PROFIT. If they pay their taxes like their supposed to, then the government gets some payback. Oh, but how those companies are whining about those taxes. Here in Benton County, Comcast is a greedy company that doesn't want to pay their fair share of the county tax bill and they've been contesting things in my area for years, so I guess they don't want to pay for a little "socialism", even if it does benefit them in the long run.

You mention movies, but there are other reasons for a bigger pipeline. I can almost can no longer buy video games, because the ineveitable patches are so large, gigabytes, it takes days to download them. That's not worth it to me. More money and profit lost to some company somewhere because of lack of access for the customer. You see the problem?

[Spidey]

Not really, because if its business that’s losing money…let business fix the problem, or continue to lose money.

I understand your position on gaming, but I don’t think it’s an important enough issue, for the taxpayer to get involved.

You kinda sound like a spoiled brat…if daddy won’t buy if for you, go running to mommy…or is it the other way around, mommy first then daddy.

[Top Gun]

There are plenty of applications that require a high-bandwidth connection that don't involve gaming or watching movies. Think about trying to run a business, or even work, from home on shitty old DSL or (God forbid) dial-up. It'd be impossible, especially if your job required you to videoconference or routinely share large files. In the 21st century, high-speed Internet access is becoming more and more of a necessity, and the United States lags woefully behind most other technically-advanced countries in terms of speed and availability.

[Spidey]

I can’t imagine any business in any major market area, not being able to get high speed internet service.

If you don’t have high speed service at home, oh well, I guess you will have to go to the office…

[Top Gun]

That's all well and good if you have an office, which wouldn't be the case if you were running a business out of your home, as I mentioned.

[Spidey]

Sorry, I thought you meant as an employee. Well if you don’t have high speed internet at home, I would suggest not starting a home business that relied on it.

[vision]

Sorry, I thought you meant as an employee. Well if you don’t have high speed internet at home, I would suggest not starting a home business that relied on it.

And I think this is something that is going to change over time as more and more jobs get automated and more people telecommute. With the rise of cloud computing and non-local apps, I can imagine a time in the near future where having the bandwidth you need will be essential for all families in all locations. Today we already see the major disadvantage students have in our education system when they don't have access to computers and the Internet. I think in time, entire regions of the country may be put at an economic disadvantage because of information flow... Maybe.

I think a good plan for the future would be to think of the "information superhighway" as part of the nation's infrastructure and pay the same attention to it. If the government can fix potholes in my street, maybe they can help my internet connection from timing out too, haha.

[Tunnelcat]

Not really, because if its business that’s losing money…let business fix the problem, or continue to lose money.

I understand your position on gaming, but I don’t think it’s an important enough issue, for the taxpayer to get involved.

You kinda sound like a spoiled brat…if daddy won’t buy if for you, go running to mommy…or is it the other way around, mommy first then daddy.

You sound like a whiny bully sitting at your computer behind a gigabit connection, or at least a 12 meg one. Easy for you to throw insults when you already have the cake.

[Spidey]

768 down 128 up

That's kbits...base package DSL from Verizon.

[Top Gun]

I think a good plan for the future would be to think of the "information superhighway" as part of the nation's infrastructure and pay the same attention to it. If the government can fix potholes in my street, maybe they can help my internet connection from timing out too, haha.

The problem here is that our current physical infrastructure is falling to pieces, so there's no way in hell we'll be able to do anything about the digital side of things.

[Tunnelcat]

768 down 128 up

That's kbits...base package DSL from Verizon.

Beats mine from Century Link, which is 161 kbits down, when it's maxed out. And that's the highest download speed they even OFFER in my neighborhood.

[Foil]

Ouch. 160kbit ~= 20kbytes/sec, minus overhead... you almost might as well be using dial-up.

[Tunnelcat]

Oops, I messed up my bits/bytes. My connection speed is listed at 1.5 MBps download speed, so I'm actually getting 160 kB/sec max, or 1280 kbits per second.......I think. So I guess Spidey's connection is a lot slower than mine. Never mind.

It's still crappy if I want to download some patch because some developer couldn't get their original game code right and now wants ME to download a 6GB patch because they think I have a fast connection speed. That would take me around 13 hours, depending on the compression rate of the file. It's just not feasible. I had to take the original Black Ops game back to the store when I found out that it required a 6GB patch just to play it. They lost some money. Not good for the market is it?

[Heretic]

[Krom]

30 / 4 mbit cable on charter, but when you factor in the 250 GB/month bandwidth cap they have on it, the *allowed* average is a bit over 0.8 mbit (101.1 KB/sec).

[Tunnelcat]

Faster than me and 70% of the U.S.! We're slugs compared to Japan! How is this good for our economy now?

http://digitaljournal.com/article/200308

[Spidey]

Nobody said it was good for the economy, but a lot of things are not good for the economy.

Isn’t it your side that always says we shouldn’t be subsidizing business?

[Tunnelcat]

Nobody said it was good for the economy, but a lot of things are not good for the economy.

Isn’t it your side that always says we shouldn’t be subsidizing business?

No, liberals aren't for subsidizing business. But doing something that helps the country as a whole succeed, both businesses AND individuals, is not something liberals are against. The interstate highway system and rural electrification have made it far easier for business and commerce to prosper for all.

[Krom]

Most telecommunications infrastructure in the US is already heavily subsidized, the difference between America and Japan is that in America the telecommunications infrastructure is also heavily monopolized by private industry, thus speeds suffer.

[Spidey]

Ok, persuade me…what exactly would you have the government do?

Maybe we can have some small agreement.

[Krom]

Stop letting private companies monopolize infrastructure, like in Japan where the companies that sell internet service don't actually own the networks they sell service on. It isn't a cure all for internet infrastructure problems, but it at least eliminates one fairly big reason for private companies to sit on their asses milking outdated copper networks to death just because upgrading would hurt profits.

[Spidey]

That’s ok, but if the government doesn’t install the infrastructure, most companies would be reluctant to install any infrastructure under those conditions.

I thought all of that was settled when the competition for the baby bells sued to have access, and now can use the wires Ma Bell installed for less than it costs them to use them?

It actually might be a good idea to have the government provide capital for private companies to take over the installation and maintenance of all telecom infrastructure, as long as the taxpayer doesn’t end up paying for the entire thing.

I haven’t really given this issue much thought, we just got FIOS here, and I always just figured things were a little slow in this country because of how things work in a private market, but in the end high speed would be available to just about everyone…in time.

[Spidey]

Well we now have competition here on the power grid, where more providers other than PECO can use the grid, and as a result of the loss in business and the economy of scale, I lost my residential heating discount!

And moving to one of the minimally cheaper competitors will never make up the difference.

[Tunnelcat]

Most telecommunications infrastructure in the US is already heavily subsidized, the difference between America and Japan is that in America the telecommunications infrastructure is also heavily monopolized by private industry, thus speeds suffer.

And thus my point is made.