Interesting summary by Tom Schultz on the link between Watertown’s Davies Award, the UW and controversial VP Dick Cheney.
Category: Politics
Monopolies, Microsoft & Newspapers
Barry Ritholtz nicely summarizes the monopolist’s modus operandi:
Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop — and because of that, there are certain behaviors they are legally restricted from engaging in (at least, in legal theory). Microsoft should not be able to disadvantage competitors by leveraging that monopoly in a way that restricts competition.
Search is a perfect example: By setting the default to MSN search, and making it extremely awkward to change it, they automatically become one of the top 3 players in that space. What would take any other company billions of dollars to do, they get for, oh, about nothing.
Clearly, in the case of newspapers, protected by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, it’s rather simple to create additional print publications, that for others would be expensive. Similarily, they can use this monopoly postion to give away advertising products & content, if necessary, to kill competition (just like Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer, to “cut off Netscape’s air supply“).
Ditka for Senate?
Mike Ditka for Senate? Why not? 🙂 via instapundit.
Fiber to the Home?
Stanley Miller’s article on SBC’s Oconomowoc fiber to the home project (Paved over Pabst Farms new developments only) provides a useful look at what’s possible, if the monopolistic telco’s ever are motivated to provide reasonable internet speeds (Japan and Korea already have very large scale, inexpensive deployments at these speeds). We in the tech industry refer to these type of projects as demoware.
David Isenberg reviews an interesting recent study (May, 2004) by Telcordia and Sanfor Bernstein (investment houses) called Fiber: Revolutionizing the Bell’s Telecom Networks. The study claims that fiber to the premises (FTTP) would reduce (by 30 to 90%!! the telco’s operating expenses (in other words, pay for itself over time, vs. the high costs of maintaining their aging copper networks. Interesting reading.
This is a critical economic development issue. Unfortunately, our politicians seem to have their head in the sand on this (SBC status quo lobbying helps, no doubt). I mentioned this issue to then candidate Jim Doyle at a pre election debate: “SBC’s telco stranglehold on Wisconsin is a major economic development problem” He replied (paraphrased); “you’re right, but we have other economic problems to address first”. I think he has this wrong. True high speed bi directional connectivity opens up enourmous new business opportunies.
Forsaking Privacy
If the government had access to the communications between a client and his lawyer, the lawyer would be nothing but a government agent, like Soviet defense attorneys, whose official role was to serve as adjuncts to the prosecution.
Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton, “The Tyranny of Good Intentions”
Once upon a time, the U.S. Justice Department respected the legal rights that make law a shield of the innocent rather than a weapon of government. No more. What the great English jurist William Blackstone called “the Rights of Englishmen” have been eroded beyond recognition.
The last remaining right ? the attorney-client privilege ? is under full-scale assault by Justice Department prosecutors in the tax shelter case involving the accounting firm KPMG. The Justice Department has demanded, and the accounting firm has agreed to, a waiver of the attorney-client privilege for communications between lawyers and KPMG employees involved in marketing tax shelters the Internal Revenue Service has challenged.
The attorney-client privilege was long championed by jurists because they realized the privilege promoted equality under the law. Convictions can result from lack of access to legal knowledge as well as from actual wrongdoing. To ensure defendants would avail themselves of legal counsel, their communications with attorneys were made confidential, outside the reach of prosecutors.
I’ve written about tax issues before, including this article on our very odd SUV subsidies.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Dean campaign architect Joe Trippi’s new book discusses the power of the internet and how individuals and organizations can benefit.
Senator Kohl spends some time on baseball issues…
Steve Fainaru continues his series on the monopoly that is baseball, including Bud Selig’s all powerful role in the game and public financing of stadiums. Today’s article includes quotes from Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis) regarding a potential baseball team in Washington, DC (nice to see the Senator spending time on important issues….)
I continue to be amazed that it took a newspaper 700 miles from Wisconsin, The Washington Post, to write this series on the fleecing of taxpayers. Perhaps former Governor Tommy Thompson helped out – he’s quoted in the articles.
MGE feeding at the trough…
Madison’s Monopoly Utility, MGE, has according to this isthmus column [1.8MB PDF] by Chamond Liu, served it’s local customers by:
- MGE’s electric rates are the highest in the state.
- $348,634 in political contributions. (!)
- $150,000 from MGE is itemized in an indictment against a Wisconsin state senator who sponsored no-bid legislation requiring the UW to “negotiate” with MGE for this power plant.
- UW System President Katherine Lyall owned, as of January 2003, 14539 shares in Alliant Energy, the company responsible for building the MGE Plant.
MGE should, simply on the basis of their lobbying and high rates, be excluded from any UW projects. It really does not make sense for such a small utility to exist any longer….. (at ratepayer expense).
Fore (friends of responsible energy) Madison has quite a bit of information on this issue.
I’ve written about MGE’s high rates and routing cash through the Kansas Democratic Party (!) before.
Selig & Publicly Funded Stadiums
Fascinating article by Steve Fainaru on Bud Selig’s Miller Park hardball tactics (with some interesting comments from former governor Tommy Thompson):
The soaring brick ballpark on the outskirts of this city took the lives of three ironworkers. It cost a Republican state senator his job and set back taxpayers a sum equal to the Milwaukee County parks budget projected over the next decade. It nearly exhausted the political capital of the former governor, Tommy G. Thompson, who championed the stadium to keep Wisconsin “major league.” But Thompson won’t set foot in the place. Last year, when the ballpark’s tenants, the Milwaukee Brewers, invited Thompson to Opening Day, he declined. He did it to protest Brewers owner and Commissioner of Baseball Allan H. (Bud) Selig, who, Thompson said in an interview, provided misleading financial information to get the stadium built, then broke promises to use the increased revenue to make the Brewers competitive.
“There were just so many misleadings and mischaracterizations,” said Thompson, now Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Bush administration.
I’ve not set foot in Miller Park, and don’t plan to. Then, there’s this quote from the deputy editor of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on their predicament (the newspaper’s parent company’s Chairman was a lobbyist for the stadium!):
Inside the newspapers, reporters and editorial writers felt constrained. “We were totally compromised at that point,” said Sue Ryon, deputy editor of the Milwaukee Journal’s editorial page, then the lead editorial writer on the stadium issue. “We had no credibility. Anything we said, it was, ‘Well, who can believe them? Look at the position they’re in?’ We felt as a newspaper, as an editorial board, handcuffed, and that was pretty much from the beginning.”
Two useful links: Field of Schemes | Doug Pappas site
Feingold, Kohl support the criminalization of movie theatre recording
I don’t support recording movies in theatres, however, it seems absurd with the challenges our country faces today, including health care, education, terrorism and job growth, that our elected senators (Kohl | Feingold) would support – unanimously, this bill (S.1932). Once again, our elected senators are bowing to the cash machine from Hollywood and the RIAA. Nice work. Contact Senators Kohl and Feingold and let them know that there are much greater priorities than this….
What a waste of time and money.