That's what they wanted you to think, but really, can you prove that? That's a huge conjecture. And even if it was true, I don't like the current state of the economy nor all of the power the government has usurped from productive citizens. All the government did was to make the hangover temporarily go away by drinking more alcohol. You don't cure a hangover that way. You endure the pain, and you don't get wasted in the future.

Bingo! It's a plain and simple solution, and it works! What I want to know is, what rules can we put in place to automatically shrink the size of government when it gets too big to fail?

The "low" rate is what you might be billed by "your" utilities, but what are the true prices of such service? Could such utilities survive without the local government subsidizing them with tax money? So if you took away the tax money, you'd better believe the price would be higher directly to you. Second, if government-owned things are such a silver bullet, why not nationalize everything. Then you would completely control everything! If you think that's absurd, then how would you propose what should be nationalized (or owned by local governments) and what should be private? How can you truly know how efficient and effective your government agencies are? There's really no such thing.

Good citations, you really convinced me that "competition" has failed. So then lets insert the government to do it, because they never fail! /sarcasm

Wow, someone actually agrees with me on /. That's like a first. :)

I agree. Not only is it a luxury item that is important, but it's too important for the government to control. Can you imagine the security implications and headaches a network like this would have? There are so many technical, economic and legal unintended consequences to this, it's not even funny. If the government might do anything (and even here I'm skeptical), they should help make sure that the current private means of getting on the 'net remain competitive and sooner than later, cheap Internet in many different forms will be ubiquitous without the unintended consequences that only a government can create.

I predict this will also be a new avenue for the US federal government to regulate the Internet into oblivion. This is a setup for a massive new power grab.

Yes of course road quality varies, and who knows exactly why some jurisdictions have much better roads than others. It's definitely not as simple as "the voters to want it." In an ideal world, that would be true. But like I replied to another comment, there are all kinds of things standing in the way of true representation like that such as corruption, lobbying, lust for power, the legislators personally disagreeing, etc.

Take a look at this from economist Walter Block, it's pretty good: The privatization of roads

"I would say a government has more incentive than any private entity in maintaining roads. What incentive would a private contractor have in maintining it right? If it gets paid a fixed rate for "operation" then the more skimping on quality means more profit."

I wasn't necessarily comparing to private road operators, but you clearly don't understand the concept of competition. Of course a company who would have zero other competition would be horrible at road maintenance (just like the government operator). But that scenario does not and would not exist. If private road operators were able to properly pay for and acquire the right of way to build new parallel roads, people could choose the best route to get somewhere. So of course it's a bit more complex than that, but you get my point. Also, different modes of transportation provide incentives to maintain the roads well by private entities. This is not true of a government. If people prefer the local trains because the roads have too many potholes and feel dangerous, it won't just go fix the roads. There are so many political wills to take into account, plus lobbying, labor unions, regulations, and the personal feelings of the legislators. It's much simpler and more straightforward for a private company compared to a government.

I'm not trying to insert a discussion of the pros and cons of the government making and maintaining roads, but simply trying to state that governments have very little, if any, incentive to improve roads, improve the safety of roads or use new innovative techniques. It usually takes a crisis before new things get implemented. Under normal circumstances they have very little incentive to continually raise the bar and wow the user (all of us) of the roads.

For those who are generally ok with the government knowing best for them, how can you justify your position with something like this? It clearly is something so egregious, so ridiculous, so out-of-bounds! Honestly, how is this about protecting people at all and not about special interests, money and more power? I find people who trust their government officials to do the "right thing" for the "greater good" to be really naive. The best kind of government is the one that does the minimal. Protects justice by providing a judicial system to resolve conflicts after the fact, a defense force that protects the borders and does not get involved in offensive wars or peace missions (unless invited by allies), and highly federal (meaning localized, not nationalized) police forces. This is the only way to keep things like this ridiculous new power grab from happening. But even then, I'm pessimistic that such a government wouldn't still grow into the tyrannical behemoths that we have today in the "free" world. How can anyone defend such power grabs?

Completely agree. Well said. It's easy to say something is easy and straightforward after the fact, but what Google has done and continues to do is nothing short of amazing.

Darn! You beat me to linking to that article. Even after reading that article, I still feel really good about voting for Gary Johnson even though I know it won't make much of a difference. But I can't in good conscience support the two major bafoons.

Absolutely well said. I really wish someone could go on all of the national TV stations during prime time and announce this. It boggles my mind how passionate people get about voting for their guy, because the other guy is purely evil! Really...why do we seemingly always end up with evil then? Why don't we stop voting for evil, and kick evil out. There's no room for evil anymore. Time to get a few people with a clue who aren't completely bought out to all of the lobbyist interests.

Sure, let's throw more money at the problem. Money solves all issues! We don't need brains, or make wise decisions. Just throw more money at it! How's that education working out for the Microsoft people lobbying Congress to do this? Not so well I see.

"As for your second paragraph; that's a political thing, as to whether or not the state (or in the EU's case, the Union) should interfere, and to what degree. However, let's say you did think Google was abusing its position, unfairly, causing you (perhaps as a website operator who needed those search hits to function/generate revenue, but were being punished for not being a Google product, or Google-friendly), what are you alone going to be able to do about it? Nothing remotely effective."

Who cares? In your fictitious scenario with Google (which would never happen the way you describe), even if it could be true, Google earned that right to be that dominant. People chose to use Google en masse. Are you (the all-knowing government) going to punish all of the people who chose to use Google and give it the dominant position? What if such an action caused Google such irrevocable harm that it eventually led to it going out of business? Was "justice" served? Or did the most dominant gang (i.e. the prevailing government), exercise its unjust force over a lesser gang (i.e. Google), crushing it? I would say in such a scenario, the government owes a lot of damages to a lot of people.

What's to stop the EU from systematically only targeting U.S. companies since they seem to be the ones with a lot of money? At what point does it not become completely corrupt and a scheme to steal money from the productive sector into the unproductive sector? I say it is always corrupt.