Vote for me, Hotspot Hillary – I'm your $250bn broadband builder-in-chief Hillary Clinton has announced a $250bn plan to build out the United States' broadband infrastructure and ensure that everyone has fast internet access at an affordable price by 2020. That's the headline figure anyway in her new policy position called "Building Tomorrow's Economy Today." In reality, the presidential candidate …
but all I see is another way of funneling tax money. As much as I like fast Internet access I do believe that we better have choice in what we spend our money for. Just take care of level playing field and invisible hand of free market will fix current mess (to much to ask I bet).
And above all, Clintons, Bushes etc need to be kept out of White House. As bad as it is we need to keep some pretenses that the country is not run by family clans. Who's next - her daughter?
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I am not sure if I understand you. In the Nordic countries (and many other countries) broadband is both faster and cheaper than in the USA because there is competition. The ISP I use for the line to my house is by one ISP but my dongle is with an other, and I could add a few if I wanted. Still some Americans call the Nordic countries "socialist" while at the same time Americans seem to have less and less choice and call it capitalist, very funny, although it makes me laugh less and less. Are those Nordic ISPs run or sponsored by the states, no. There is not one country or one area in those countries, and you can add many more European countries, where you have only one ISP to choose from and no competition, not so in the USA.
As for Bernie Sanders, he has indeed forced Hillary to speak about real issues, stuff that actually interest normal Americans, even blabbermouth donald seems to take a page or two from him.
Bernie does refer to the Nordic countries, perhaps he should not, perhaps he should speak about some new fantastic all American invention like affordable health care and education never seen anywhere else in the world before. Is he just too honest and just not stupid enough for the American people, we shall see.
And of course there is the word democratic socialist, in Europe the word tends to be social democrat which again is capitalism with a social conscience the way I see it. Still a one ore two word sentence is never enough to explain anything.
Lars,
What percentage of your total income is taken by taxes and fees? That's what determines if your country is Socialist/Communist or not as far as I am concerned. Looks like most of the countries on this list are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
"Just take care of level playing field and invisible hand of free market will fix current mess"
The end result will be cheap Internet for city folk and none at all for rural folk. The market is concerned only with profit and profit comes from serving lots of customers who live close to each other in terrain that's easy to build through.
In Europe we take care of that - with varying degrees of success - through regulation, obligation and carefully controlled state aid where it's needed. Without that the farmer who lives 20 miles from the nearest town is never going to have reliable and affordable broadband because the true cost for that one circuit would be thousands and thousands of euros a month.
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The current batch of candidates is basically clueless. Sanders started much of this but hasn't a clue how to pay for it. The rest on his side are jumping on the bandwagon and if the Feds pay for it, we the citizens will do their bidding. Once you take the King's shilling.. etc. etc. Well, the corporates will profit since the Feds would probably pay them to build out.
On the other side? Similar batch but no concept of the issues except corporate profits. Most probably haven't a clue what the 'Net is.
No matter who wins we, the people, will probably lose. And this is just one issue. I shudder to think what happens when the election is over and the infighting really starts.
Yeah, I'm pessimistic as hell. There's not one leader in the bunch. No inspiration, no high ground. Just having a urinating contest for distance and not accuracy.
Will vote down anything put forward by a Democrat. Just like they did yesterday to Obamas plans to limit CO2 etc.
If there is one thing that you can rely upon is the the GOP will stick their collective heads in the sand when it somes to climate change.
Meanwhile the rest of the world give the USA the finger.
The USA where to a lot of people even Maggie T is far too left wing for them.
The major ISPs in the present monopolist structure are licking their chops every time they hear proposed government funding for enhancing/improving broadband to consumers. The money ends up in their pockets whilst laying out new lines to more homes, so a win-win for them. They get paid huge sums to increase their customer base.
What the government should be looking at is opening up the markets for competition and removing the rules and regulations that created the present monopolist structure in the first place. It's almost impossible for an new ISP to enter a market that already has an established monopoly provider. And with more competition, coverage would expand and improve greatly. Then it would be a win-win for the consumer.
Clinton pushes this as it is just another opportunity for graft, and Clinton is the QUEEN of graft and influence peddling. You can just see her salivating uncontrollably at the thought of how much various groups will contribute to the Clinton Foundation for a chance to dip their bucket into the endless stream of government funding that this initiative will provide.
God save us from corrupt pols, because the clueless voters won't !
When the government gets involved all sorts of things happen. Usually money is wasted in the process. It is like skimming money that really does no good.
Remember be vary wary of someone who says "I'm form the government and I'm here to help you". Run, run away, run away fast.
For the most part our internet here in "the land of the free" has been done privately, and it works quite well. Sure there are exceptions, but I hate to see if it was entirely done by a government. They would want to make it all programmed in Cobol.
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