The Internet.

[PBSteve]

I'd consider myself a conservative, but wouldn't accept the idea that "conservatives think it's all bad". Let's not start throwing any more blanket terms around than we have to... I'm probably center left economically.

If you're center left economically, you're basically a communist in these parts.

[Fred]

I've run into a similar situation.

Bought a house, wanted Verizon FIOS, but oops, the only fiber service allowed in my area is ATT.

Better service, allegedly, than the Comcast plan I had in my apt, and $50 less a month to boot, but due to the legalized/regulated monopoly, no dice for the service I've had before and would prefer to have now.


I typically lean conservative but more and more I feel I agree with Libertarians. I'd really rather the government just left me the hell alone, because I know that I'm a better judge of whats good for me than they are, and you are a better judge of what's good for you, which isn't any of my concern.

[new ion?]

Politics confuses me and I usually like to leave it alone.

However, I've yet to see one politician do good on promises, and Christy Clark has really, really done a poor job.

[pbjosh]

NZ is officially the easiest country in the world in which to start your own business. You can set up a fully legal company with almost zero paperwork in an hour or so.

Texas is the same way. Wife set up her business in about 5 minutes of real time, after 30 minutes of going "Is that really it?"

Filed our LLC online in about 15 minutes.

Getting a tax EIN was a bit more involved. But decent all the way around here.

Just to confuse people I call myself "Classically Liberal": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

It starts off the discussion differently because preconceived notions are kinda of turned on their head if people don't know what it is.

There was the New Whig Party... that was kind of interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Whig_Party

[cockerpunk]

I'd consider myself a conservative, but wouldn't accept the idea that "conservatives think it's all bad". Let's not start throwing any more blanket terms around than we have to... I'm probably center left economically.

Capitalism definitely falls apart once companies start reaching monopoly/oligopoly stages or when dealing with addictive/non-optional product such as water, so government (or something) is needed to regulate that. Here in Wellington NZ I've got about thirty different ISPs to choose from with wildly varying prices, due mostly to heavy government regulation of the big players. It's working pretty well. A correctly administered capitalist society will favor startups and innovation over stodgy big players, which means keeping patents short and copyright law loose. We're lucky - NZ is officially the easiest country in the world in which to start your own business. You can set up a fully legal company with almost zero paperwork in an hour or so. Still have patents that last about fifty years too long, but that's what it is.

we live in a day an age where if you think that the environmental protection agency should probably exist, you might as well be mao. center left economically? yeah thats pure communism in the USA right now. the mere suggestion that government should regulate anything at all is pure poison in the USA, thats how violently far the right wing in the USA has gone off the deep end.

as i said, the irony, is to reestablish actual capitalism in the USA, we need the government to intervene. adam smith had a very simple solution to "to big to fail" and he said that a properly functioning market should never have a player who is too big to fail. which means ... the government needs to break up the big banks. again, ironically, calling for this in the USA is seen as communist, despite it literally being quotable from adam smith.

[Davros]

PBSteve: I feel for you. It infuriates me and not living there it has no effect on me. My ISP provides astounding speeds and bandwidth although their tech support is non-existent. So I am lucky but just hearing that others in the world have such a messed up system for such an important thing angers me in principle.

This and the (admittedly lesser) problems we have here make me a big believer in community owned infrastructure. It is not the 1970's anymore, we do not have to match an infrastructure to its own service or to each provider. Fibre optic to the home owned by the municipality would do so much good. They would charge a reasonable fee to use it, but let all providers use it. That way you have competition for everything, and if any one of them does something awefull you can have your local councillors throw that company off the network. The threat to throw them should fix the problem first, but even before that, have tonnes of competition should have it take care itself. Blocking Netflix? Then I am going to one of the 12 other companies.

[Jack Wood]

So are you guys paying $40-50 Per month just for basic broadband? Or does that include some TV packages or some other value-added?

[new ion?]

Oh that's just basic internet.

[PBSteve]

So are you guys paying $40-50 Per month just for basic broadband? Or does that include some TV packages or some other value-added?

"Broadband".

I'm paying $47.99/mo for 1.5 mbps down. If I did it through Verizon it would be about the same price but they throw in a landline (I'm sure there's a story of subsidization behind that).

[new ion?]

Is that 1.5 on a speed test or continuous download?