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if you are going to just pull out % like that i will do the same. i have heard it mentioned that less than 7% of obama's stimulus program went to the infrastructure programs that he spent a lot of time talking about when pushing the stimulus.
ultimately, the concept isnt debateable as far as im concerned. what is the logic for believing that we are better off having the government spend our money for us? it makes no sense.
What you and I call a cut in spending is switching from cable with all the bells and wistles to the basic cable or cutting it out all together. That is a cut in spending.
If you drive less today than you drove yesterday and spend less on gas that is a cut in spending.
If you normally go out to eat while you are working and decide from now on to bring your lunch, that is a cut in spending.
When you spend less today than you did yesterday that is a cut in spending.
The Governments idea on what a cut in spending is:
Don't fill jobs that are not currently filled and call that a cut in spending.
Don't purchase something that you have budgeted to purchase and call that a cut in spending.
Instead of buying 50 cars that the government doesn't have buy 25 and call that a cut in spending even though you did buy the 25 cars.
Create a budget that is 50% larger than you need cut it by 25% and call that a cut in spending.
That's exactly right. These "cuts" are mostly reductions in growth, not actual cuts. And the OP likes to exaggerate for excitement - 10 trillion can't be cut out of current government spending because the feds don't spend that much. The 2012 budget is forecasted to be just about $3.7T, with an abominable $1.1T deficit.
The size of the federal government needs to shrink in absolute terms. I want to start with a 10% across the board cut in the budget, effective with the next fiscal year. Every department. That means everyone complains, but no one is spared. Follow that with tax reform - to simplify tax calculation, eliminate and phase out deductions, and increase tax collections.
i agree that the lack of competition fosters the like-minded approach of both companies. but for one, there are hundreds of small cell companies that a lot of people don't realize exist, so you do have choices.
Umm...huh? There are not hundreds of small cell companies, there isn't a single small cellular company because one can't even in principle exist. It costs billions to maintain a cellular network, but not only that the wavelengths are essentially monopolized as well.
You are probably thinking of the service companies that resell cellular services, but these are just service companies reselling cell services that are running through networks they don't own. They have no control over what they are charged for cell services...
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
and two, Verizon tiered pricing came out about a year after ATTs. Verizon's also came out not long after it got the iPhone, which is the main culprit of data-hogging for ATT.
Yeah, its all the iPhone, let's ignore the fact that Verizon has been selling smartphones for ages and that the Android platform has greater market share than the iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
and why will tier pricing cost customers more? I will be paying less to get the lower tier, because I don't use that much data.
In the aggregate few people will pay less, you are also assuming they will keep their lower tiers around which is unlikely, instead you're going to see the lowest tier priced at $30. I think Verizon's lowest tier is already $30...actually. AT&T is $15, but that is just for 200mb..and if you go over even a byte your at $30 again.
Anyhow, there isn't much to debate here, Americans spend more on cellular services than most others in developed countries....the reason is because the US cellular industry has less regulations and has been allowed to form qausi-monopolies. The industry, if you haven't noticed, is slowly consolidating into two companies.
But the cellular example is a good one in terms of private vs public. Generally speaking the private sector does nothing but form monopolies when the industry deals with a resource that is "natural", in the case of cellular service its the frequencies and you can't create new frequencies.... When free markets are allowed to dominate a natural resource the companies extract huge rents from the public, that is exactly what you see in the US cellular market.. There are only two ways to deal with this, have a heavily regulated but private market or make it public.
Americans are against "taxes", but they are entirely unaware of all the "taxes" they are paying to large public sector monopolies....
The size of the federal government needs to shrink in absolute terms. I want to start with a 10% across the board cut in the budget, effective with the next fiscal year. Every department..
Why does the government need to shrink in absolute terms? What determines the optimal size of government?
But the cellular example is a good one in terms of private vs public. Generally speaking the private sector does nothing but form monopolies when the industry deals with a resource that is "natural", in the case of cellular service its the frequencies and you can't create new frequencies.... When free markets are allowed to dominate a natural resource the companies extract huge rents from the public, that is exactly what you see in the US cellular market.. There are only two ways to deal with this, have a heavily regulated but private market or make it public.
Well, to be fair, the regulation played and continues to play a big role in the cellular industry.
But you're right. Nothing about a private corporation guarantees efficiency or good service.
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Originally Posted by user_id
Why does the government need to shrink in absolute terms? What determines the optimal size of government?
I'd say that it's tough for even a well-run organization to remain accountable to 300 million stakeholders. I'd favor a shift to increased state and local government services when possible.
Well, to be fair, the regulation played and continues to play a big role in the cellular industry.
There are regulations in the US cellular industry, after all there has to be for it to even work (ownership of frequencies, etc), but the regulations in the US are pretty weak in comparison to other developed countries and unsurprisingly Americans pay more for cellular services as a result.
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Originally Posted by 2018
I'd say that it's tough for even a well-run organization to remain accountable to 300 million stakeholders. I'd favor a shift to increased state and local government services when possible.
What exactly are you going to shift to state and local governments? Around ~70% of the federal budget goes to the military, social security, medicare and interest on its debt. The rest is spent almost entirely on things of national interest.
If I send a packet by USPS which is government run, It is cheaper then your private UPS or FEDEX. and you are saying it costs 3-4 times much.
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Originally Posted by cpg35223
Hurt short term. Help long term.
The thing people don't realize is that government is not an efficient consumer of resources. Anybody who has ever done business with the government knows that. Everything takes twice as long, typically costs 3-4 times as much, and is half as effective.
Heck, do yourself a favor and walk into the local city clerks office. Notice the alacrity with which they move? Notice how they are always trying to find ways to do a better job? Notice how much emphasis they put on serving the taxpayer with a smile and a cheerful attitude? Neither did I. And don't try to get anything done in that half-hour before the office closes. They're too busy packing up their thermos and other personal effects in order to sprint out the door at 5 p.m.
Now multiply that by literally millions of government employees with their attendant paperwork, regulations, and red tape and you begin to see the dimension of the problem. These are people who are employed for life and, short of diddling Girl Scouts while on their coffee break, can't lose their jobs for any reason. They have no incentive to improve and no incentive to save money. Yet so much of what goes on in government today can be automated without paying government employees hundreds of billions of dollars in salaries and benefits.
As somebody who has done DoD contracting for a while, I can tell you all the games they play towards the middle of September to spend all their budgets by the 30th. Fortunately, I've tried to give them good value for their money which evidently is a rarity. Because I am a taxpayer, too. I just can't gouge Uncle Sam.
If I send a packet by USPS which is government run, It is cheaper then your private UPS or FEDEX. and you are saying it costs 3-4 times much.
usps posted a loss of $3 billion for the last quarter and they have a government protected monopoly on regular mail. so its questionable on whether they are really cheaper than anyone.
You are forced to do business with all sorts of businesses, in some cases it may be a single business (e.g., some utilities) and in other cases its a few businesses that act as a cartel.
I'm forced to use Verizon, there is no other option.
Anyhow, private businesses tend to be more efficient than government when there is active competition, otherwise private businesses tend to be worse because they have no checks and balances, at least when the government gets out of hand it has to answer to the voters.
In terms of wireless service, are you aware that Americans pay more than most other countries and have less options? Why? Because its dominated by two companies who act in unison. Is it just a crazy coincidence that both AT&T and Verizon are switching to tier pricing for bandwidth? In some industries its more profitable for companies to join hands and extract wealth from the public than it is to actively compete with each other.
Regardless, tons of research on this topic and it all shows the same thing, namely that private businesses aren't always more efficient than government run operations. Of course the guys running the show know this, that is why they propagate the "government is inefficient" myth while extracting billions from the economy.
Yes you are right about wireless but I might point out that it is cheaper in most countries because they have a "caller pays" system where the person calling the phone gets the bill and not you. And yes, it is only going to get more expensive when AT&T eats up T-Mobile and then Verizon picks up Sprint at a fire sale. But none the less, if the government were running any of these companies, you think customer service is BAD NOW, just put the government in charge! You'd get customer service only 9 to 5 Mon-Fri and if you went to a wireless outlet, you would have to stand in line for hours. And the price would be double what it is now.
and in this case with AT&T and VerizonWireless, they didn't join together to implement tier pricing, but they do watch what each other does for sure. it's dangerous being the only one doing something, so they do spend time trying to figure out what would happen with other companies if they do it first. AT&T did tier pricing first, primarily to react to the huge amounts of bandwidth iPhone users consume. it's funny how people are so against this. just like phone plans are on tiers with quantity of minutes so that the heaviest users of the network pay the most, it makes sense for data to be the same way. why should I subsidize the customers using 10G/day when I only use 1G/day?
I agree with you. People who use more should pay more. But let's be fair. If I have a cap on what I use, I expect a warning when I get close to it. I expect an option to have it cut off when I reach that limit. If Metro PCS ever implements that policy either on data or minutes, they will do that because they are a pre pay service. AT&T will just sit back and hope you go over your cap so they can stick it to you.
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