Comments on: Tech Policy is the new Economic Policy.

By: Rod Adams

Rod Adams — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:25:36 +0000

I agree with what you said about immigration and the path to permanent residence. It is amazing to me to hear “leaders” worrying about the dramatic drop in home values at the same time that they are building walls and doing everything they can to limit the ability of people from other countries to come to the US and build lives. Have they never heard of the law of supply and demand?If the supply of homes is too large for the number of people with the resources to purchase them, a part of the solution would be to increase the demand by allowing more people to enter the market – even if they had to convert other currencies into dollars in order to make the transaction.A huge part of American economic strength during the 20th century was its ability to attract the best and the brightest from around the world to come here and prosper. Why did we stop?

By: andrew_feinberg

andrew_feinberg — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:22:12 +0000

That's fine. Notice I left it open who pays. It'd be nice to see some kind of incentive for broadband investment by private business and removal of restrictions that prevent expansion of service, for example I can't get FiOS in DC because Verizon's Cable TV franchise hasn't been approved by the city's Office of Cable Television. I'd also like to see government money go into R&D. The Internet began as a defense project, but you knew that. Where's the next big thing coming from? Could be H-P, but it would be nice if it was something dreamed up by DARPA or through some NSF grant. We need more ideas. More information. More knowledge. Not less. And government isn't using private networks for their own purposes? AT&T let NSA install a splitter in their own network for their surveillance. I think the government is going to get theirs one way or another. Maybe I'm cynical. I just want to see someone do something about our information infrastructure.

By: Keith Casey

Keith Casey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:24:32 +0000

My other issue stands… if the govt pays for it or subsidizes it, you have to plan on them using it for their own purposes. Or deciding to monitor it when they decide it is worthwhile. It's a dangerous line to cross. I'd go for Comcast's bandwidth caps before I allowed my traffic to be monitored by the Feds at their whim.

By: andrew_feinberg

andrew_feinberg — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:31:56 +0000

You mean e-rate or the schools and libraries program that the FCC implemented after the 1996 Telecommunications act? That was a circus with the best intentions, but another example of why we need to pay more attention to our infrastructure, especially with schools. Why did elementary schools need so much cisco gear? Ideas are fine. People, however, can be stupid.

By: Keith Casey

Keith Casey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:29:02 +0000

That's *ridiculous*. As soon as you allow the government to own or even subsidize something, you allow them to control it… that applies to the internet too. Look at the way they currently treat libraries. You can count on the same thing happening to ISP's if what you suggest actually happens.And by the way, it's already failed once… in the mid-90's there was an attempt to bring schools online. All it resulted in was *millions* and *millions* being spent to buy new Cisco gear that sat in closets. Thanks, but no thanks.