🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 15:06:58 -0800, For_Email@ddress.see.below_plea.se
(Philip J. Koenig) wrote:

>For the umpteenth time: TV or internet service is not the same kind
>of essential service as telephone service is.

Perhaps a clue might be helpful here.  The FCC has shown itself to be
incapable of dealing with the issue surrounding modern telconfusion.
The fact that congress had to order the FCC to rule on the local channel
carriage by satellite TV vendors by the end of February is a clue that
the wheels of regulation are not moving fast enough.  The same congress
also ruled that it would not tax the internet for 3 years.  In my
conspiratorial mind, that means that it will take 3 years to assemble
the necessary regulatory conventions (who pays the tax, how is it
assessed, who collects the tax, etc).

Congress is seriously afraid of destroying the internet, as well as any
emerging technologies, by exessive and premature regulation and
taxation.  Therefore, congress will sit on its collective posteriors,
waste its time with impeachment hearings, the FCC will dodge issues, and
regulatory enforcement will be inequitable, until such time as the new
technologies have become big enough to be effectively taxed and
regulated.  This is the reason why the current plague of monster
monopolistic mergers have slid by the regulators so easily, as such
larger companies can survive regulation and taxation much easier than
competing smaller companies.  We'll have our "fair and equitable"
regulation and taxation soon enough.  2.5 years to go and counting.



-- 
Jeff Liebermann  150 Felker St #D  Santa Cruz CA 95060
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