Both -- track the entire tree. Seems like an obvious thing to try...on retrospect.

Once you know this, you can start looking for conttol mechanisms at the DNA and chemistry level.

Their attempt to be more like a federal government than a state with respect to regulation and taxes is like a thousand mile-wide thumb pushing down on the state, forcing fierocious winds out in all directions. Businesses in the state are blown out, and businesses outside are met by a storm wind they have to struggle against to get in.

This is why their politicians have to grant huge tax breaks -- not only for direct competition but also to pay for (pay back) the inevitable reulatory burden they themselves ladle atop the companies.

> 3. Electric motors have lots of torque

This is why diesel railroad engines are used. In the words of Doc Brown, " No, no! This sucker's electrical!". The diesel motor powers a generator which drives the electric motor.

The Supreme Court is overruling Obama wanting to do less spying and being more open?

So you'd prefer the opposite order? Wars first, offshore oil exploration later?

What's the alternative? Do you think you can convince everyone that deprivation is better than plenty? Do you think the government will suddenly start adopting sound economic policies rather than economic policies to satisfy greed and envy and entitlement and grievance and short-term political goals? What would cause that to happen? And if it happened, what would cause it to continue?

Why should billions of people drastically cut their living standards to help a few thousand in the Maldives? Why should poor people agree to pay a lot more for energy to help rich FL coastal dwellers?

Do people on the coast matter more than everyone else?

Verizon can afford more lawmakers than you.

That's not an answer though. It's a description of the problem.

The reality is: they don't seem to care. If you want them to care, shouldn't you try to understand why they don't?

I know. So a different answer might be to break up the monopolies and tell local governments that they can't make long term monopoly deals any more.

It's not good in either case. We should head in the other direction.

Verizon can afford more government friends than you can. Do you honestly foresee a time when they won't? If not, maybe you shouldn't want things to be decided based on who has more government friends?

Perhaps a rule where cable or satellite TV providers are prohibited from operating centralized peering points. If Verizon had to buy their bandwidth from upstream providers, they wouldn't be able to choke L3. And L3 would have to bid against Verizon's upstream providers to get Netflix's business.

Essentially, less economic centralization in the network infrastructure would provide for more opportunities for competitive bidding all along the chain. Everyone would end up with more customer-focused incentives.

This is a different answer. Thanks.

They seem to have very limited interest in what their customers want for Netflix streaming quality. What is their incentive to care?

I covered that with "the government should threaten Verizon and force them to operate the network contrary to Verizon's best interests".

"I want it and my government friends have guns..." Is this the best we can do?

This is absolutely terrible medical advice. Decades of research shows it has a terrible success rate, and, of those who it works for, 95% it eventually fails long-term.

If this advice were a pill, the FDA would never approve it, and people like me and probably you would call it a scam.