Thursday, November 29, 2012

Government controlled non-competition

The PBS NewsHour last night had an excellent piece about how industries like telecom and internet service have become essentially government granted monopolies or duopolies, which of course is the very antithesis of what conservatives claim to be in favor of in this country.

You will recognize the nonsense (bullshit) charges from your phone bill they talk about, and the exhorbitant rates you pay for cable and internet service.  The United States--the inventor of the internet--has less broadband penetration and availability than Lithuania, all thanks to government granted monopolies.

I really wonder if things like Fox News--a corporate owned entity--really have the goal of creating gridlock in Washington so that abuses like these do not get addressed.  But that would be paranoid, I know.

It's also highly relevant to the entire culture of corporate sociopathic behavior that influences the entertainment industry to run around suing people and convincing these major ISP's--major because they are the only ones available due to government granted monopolies--to spy on their users for them.  If we had more competition in the ISP marketplace, they would have to convince a LOT more ISP's to do this, and they would all feel that it would put them at a competitive disadvantage to do so.

I wish we could get a liberal President.


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