-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 02 May 2006 21:26, Paul Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > Deregulating the telco industry and breaking up Bell was the worst > thing we could have done in this case.
There was no "de"-regulation. The "baby" bells retained their locally mandated monopolies. New tiers of service were set by regulations, different players had to deal with new and different rules in different physical areas. Worst is the requirement that all carriers have to provide remote wiretap ability for any call, anywhere, to be piped to the FBI or whoever it is who wants to listen. Hardly a "de"-regulation. Actual de-regulation would be a godsend compared to the mess created by the regulatory environment. I couldn't agree with you more that the new regulations caused problems, but don't confuse government merchantilist intervention with the "free-market". Us free-market advocates just _hate_ that. However, considering just the price drop since "de"-regulation, it's a rousing endorsement of what is possible just by allowing a little bit more competition in only one area (long distance). We freedom types would like to suggest that such would be the case in spades if real competition were allowed in all areas, just like happened with IP service prior to the DMCA and other regulations on that. California discovered the same thing when their state government "de"-regulated their power industry. There was no "de" at all, just a new spider-web of regulations that made it impossible to buy enough power to deliver to customers. Curt- - -- September 11th, 2001 The proudest day for gun control and central planning advocates in American history -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) iQEVAwUBRFgOIC9Y35yItIgBAQItxwf/Y18aM6e6lHl7K0KBC4hU6bPYGg57Gfht xiyvYNLuYFRJnJretXIxe6eFtL+o5YemeKD/BRxDqKYligFHC58ZFwwq636nvwM9 hyvopWUpBQazlJgoViozhxWRu4TyGdblBke7KL/9QaVamxyJhYGc/k1n4Mn3KneU NWQx464xRrpV6tmb3LkoDI45QB6eDEpy4BOUYdqWb29OHSY5AVbGg6VG3M32aU+3 4t3Qbn/pK0ayXwOiGVHxIL4icyv4uUtx5b+M7j/Mskhnli/3ENEOJJChphO7I7xt umwIM9gLCPG1ToheQvfdFeTOfp13CtLiem8DS0BNu2suQqER+m3ovQ== =c9r0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
