Economic Trumpism: Kurt Schlichter’s Plan to Regulate Google Into Submission
At Townhall.com, Kurt Schlichter has a piece titled Conservatives Must Regulate Google And All of Silicon Valley Into Submission. The piece captures the spirit of Trumpism admirably, by turning a company’s ability to engage in free enterprise into a privilege that can and should be withheld when the company does something to tick off someone in power.
What follows is a respectful fisking of Schlichter’s piece. (No, not a fisting. I said “fisking.”)
Schlichter starts by citing the actions of Google in firing James Damore — a firing that most conservatives agree (I think) was wrong:
Google’s fascist witch-burning of an honest engineer for refusing to bow down at the altar of politically correct lies was the final straw, an unequivocal warning to conservatives that there’s a new set of rules, and that we need to play by them. First they came for the tech geeks; we’re next. That means Republicans at both the federal and the state level need to rein in the skinny-jeaned fascist social justice warriors who control Silicon Valley – and, to a growing extent, our society – through the kind of crushing regulation of these private business that we conservatives used to oppose.
What sort of regulation does Schlichter have in mind? Well, the specific nature of the regulation is almost beside the point, actually. Schlichter’s central argument here is: we have government power and we should use it against these tech companies because they are leftists. As always, when people on the right propose doing something immoral, the justification offered is: the left did it first!
Yeah, I know that heavily regulating private businesses is not “free enterprise,” but I don’t care. See, “free enterprise” is a bargain, and they didn’t keep their part of it, and I see no moral obligation for us to be played for saps and forgo using our political power to protect our interests in the face of them using theirs to disembowel us. I liked the old rules better – a free enterprise system confers huge benefits – but it was the left that chose to nuke them.
If I wanted to distill economic Trumpism to a single phrase, I could not do better than: “This is not free enterprise, but I don’t care.” It is Trump’s answer to companies that threaten to lower their costs (and thus prices to consumers) by moving portions of their operations overseas. It is Trump’s answer to foreign countries who provide cheap and plentiful goods to our citizens. The hidden assumption here is that the companies are the principal actors that benefit from free enterprise.
The assumption is false, though. The primary beneficiaries of free enterprise are consumers. We don’t reject socialism primarily because it hurts companies. We reject socialism because it is ruinous to the consumer. It makes the average person’s life far worse. And capitalism makes the average person’s life better.
Schlichter’s suggested retaliatory act #1 is to break up the companies because they’re “too darn big.” The idea of threatening to use antitrust laws to break up a company because you don’t like its political message is, of course, not new with Schlichter. President Trump himself has threatened to do the same to Amazon as retaliation for things said about him in the Washington Post. But monopolies are good — as long as they are formed through free enterprise, and not through government privilege. If you don’t understand this, I won’t convince you in a short blog post. It requires a more extensive discussion of the nature of free enterprise and consumer choice. You can start your education by clicking the link just provided and reading Leonard Read on the subject.
Let’s move on to Schlichter’s suggested retaliatory act #2:
[W]e need legislation – at both the federal and individual red state levels – that will impose staggering, gut-wrenching monetary penalties for not only the active misuse of this information, but even for the mere failure to safeguard it – any failure to safeguard it. If the info gets out, Google gets slammed – hard. Call it the Citizens’ Data Protection Act – gosh, who could oppose protecting citizens’ data? – and impose huge civil and even criminal penalties for any disclosure of private information about a private citizen. Yes, that’s a strict liability standard – if a citizen’s information gets out for any reason, Google pays through the nose regardless of fault. Now there’s an incentive to make sure our data is secure.
Holy unintended consequences, Batman! As with the rest of the piece, I’m not 100% sure if Schlichter is actually serious or not. But if he is, his piece does not take into account the likely reaction of any tech company facing such a regulation, and how that would affect us. Would you provide an email service if this rule existed, making possible ruinous sanctions against your company? No, you wouldn’t. If such a rule were promulgated, say goodbye to email. At a minimum, email would become so expensive and burdensome to use that most people would go back to snail mail, which would be a body blow to the economy.
Also from the “unintended consequences” pile comes this idea:
[H]ow about the Algorithm Transparency Act, a law that bans these big Internet companies from putting their fingers on the scale of discourse and requires them to make available online all of their operating algorithms?
Do I really have to explain the incentive-smashing character of this proposed regulation? Or what it would do to your daily life if companies faced such a regulation? Incentives matter. Take away a company’s incentive to do any act, and the company will not do that act. And the algorithms Schlichter is citing here make all our lives better in countless ways that we have come to take for granted. We assume companies will continue to work to improve our lives.
Not if we try to ruin them because we don’t like their politics.
Again, perhaps the column is meant as pure “let’s smash the left” entertainment, and Schlichter doesn’t really mean any of it. The problem is, Trump’s protectionism and proposed retaliation against companies is no joke — and people still seem to support it. So, joke or no, it pays dividends to actually stop and think about the effect that the regulations proposed in this column would have.
If you don’t like the politics of Google or Facebook, don’t threaten them with government power. Go start a competitor with more conservative politics. And don’t whine about how that’s impossible. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates didn’t whine about how IBM was a behemoth that could never be supplanted. They just went out and created companies that supplanted it.
Go and do likewise, gents. The money’s out there. You pick it up, it’s yours.
[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]
It’s always a challenge for me, where to start. So here is the most important thing:
The most common complaint about free enterprise and free trade is that it isn’t “fair”. It isn’t fair that China makes stuff cheaper than we can and make money, and it isn’t fair that Google can give stuff away for free and gain influence and power as well as making money.
But the thing about free trade and free enterprise is that keeping them in place is still the thing that is most advantageous for the consumers. If China started leaving manufactured goods on our docks without payment, that would be “dumping” and “unfair”, and American consumers would benefit from all the free stuff far more than they would if the free stuff were rejected; just as we benefit more from free sunlight than by paying for it.
As for Google, there are any number of free alternatives for anything that Google provides, and anything you find on the Internet you should be thinking critically about anyway so who cares about their algorithms? Take another two seconds to use a competing search engine. Google wasn’t even the first one.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:43 amOr just stop using their products.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:47 amThe demand for “fairness”, economically speaking, is a demand that we take poison ourselves to counteract the poison someone else is taking.
If Canada pays loggers to cut down its forests and then “dumps” the wood on our market, then the taxpayers of Canada have paid for our wood already. Why on earth should we keep them from their folly, or even worse, double down on it by billing our taxpayers to offset what the Canadians already paid? Madness!
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:49 amAlien hybrid reveals his identity..
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/playbook/2017/08/14/pence-does-what-trump-hasnt-and-disavows-neo-nazis-and-white-supremacists-trump-aides-predict-brutal-september-risen-to-the-intercept-bday-adam-goldman-221843
Ben burn (515793) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:49 amWhoops..sorry.
Ben burn (515793) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:49 am“……..try to ruin them because we don’t like their politics.”
You mean like the Left does whether its bakeries declining to cater certain weddings or Whole Food CEOs who embrace individual liberty?
“If you don’t like the politics of Google…”
How about the policies, where employees boast about blacklisting and stunting the careers of anyone who goes against Groupthink without any apparent fear of discipline?
And how about the policies/politics of the media response to the Google memo which amounts to outright fraud?
I’m not agreeing with Schliecter but everything you condemn about his ‘plan’ is practiced in much worse ways daily all over the country by liberals/leftists.
harkin (af9684) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:56 am2 – “Or just stop using their products.
One easy thing to to punish Google is to switch to a different search engine. I switched to DuckDuckGo.
I wonder if the loss in traffic from all who have done this last week is discernible…..
harkin (af9684) — 8/14/2017 @ 9:59 amCan’t do anything on smartphone without Google sign in, at least through Verizon.
Ben burn (515793) — 8/14/2017 @ 10:05 amI switched to DuckDuckGo just a week ago suggested by Dianny at Patriot Retort I think.
Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 8/14/2017 @ 10:16 amThe ‘consumer’ who supposedly benefits from low priced foreign goods is in many cases the ‘worker’ who lost his job because his former employer moved off-shore for the cheap labor necessary to match prices with imported goods.
Trump is right: Buy American and Hire American!
ropelight (072508) — 8/14/2017 @ 10:40 amCongrats to our host in his civil treatment of a stupid argument.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 10:51 amAnother thing to hurt google is to install any app that messes with their ad click software.
Adnauseam for one. Clicks all ads on a page so google cannot get a read on your interests.
NJRob (7f4bec) — 8/14/2017 @ 10:51 amChanging management or company structure is not going to change internet companies any. Their rank and file will still be geeks of dubious sexuality getting paid for that they would otherwise be doing in their parents’ basements. That’s what made the Damore farce a farce. “There’s a Battle of the Sexes taking place at Google? How can you tell the sides apart?”
nk (dbc370) — 8/14/2017 @ 10:55 amI use Google, Chrome and YouTube. I also use Bing, Edge and Dailymotion among others. I would still use Firefox, too, if not for a Trojan vulnerability which they cannot seem to fix. Same with Amazon. I use it for some things and other companies for other things. The way to deal with a monopoly is not to let it monopolize you.
nk (dbc370) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:00 amBeldar is right and so is Patterico.
And, Patterico is being positively nice about his criticism – what is he plotting?
Fred Z (cfd50a) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:17 amI didn’t think Google gamed cornering the fascist market..
Ben burn (cfffcc) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:22 amhttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-protests-godaddy-idUSKCN1AU0CV
ropelight: “Buy American and Hire American!”…
This has nearly always led to the Americans being hired and bought from costing the consumer a lot of money. Where supply of product or labor is limited, prices go up.
It also makes it more difficult for foreigners to buy American exports. What will they use for money? Exporters need foreigners to have American dollars to buy what Americans want to export and the only way foreigners can get those US dollars is to sell something they make to Americans.
Trump’s statements on protectionism are some of his policy ideas which do not seem to have a good chance of working well. I hope he takes some advice and moderates them. I expect he will find, on closer review, that the problems of lost jobs can be solved in ways other than protectionism.
Has anyone ever seen a good analysis of the savings from cheap imports vs. the actual and human costs of lost jobs? I have a vague idea that we are all better off, in total, more than we lose in dealing with job losses, but that’s not enough for policy. Perhaps Mr. Trump could look into that and perhaps short term target tax on specific imports to support those who lose jobs.
Never forget that the USA is, and always has been, one of the greatest commercial and exporting nations on earth.
Fred Z (cfd50a) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:28 am…Go and do likewise, gents. The money’s out there. You pick it up, it’s yours.
Quaint. And you drive a Tucker.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:31 am@ropelight:
Why do you work, economically speaking? You work to get stuff. All you have to trade is your time and anything you know, if you’re “working” (as opposed to buying and selling).
A worker’s job is not “his”, not by right. If you are doing something, and not getting value for doing it, stop doing it by all means, but don’t bleed the rest of us if you don’t.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:34 amI don’t understand that the presumption is that all people who have whatever job have the moral right to keep that job and not have to change careers.
And we’re curiously selective, aren’t we, about which jobs are deserving of this moral protection. After all, the people commenting here, by and large, are not in favor of tenure in academia or seniority rules in teacher’s unions, it’s only manufacturing jobs that wear the halo. And on the progressive side it would be teachers who get to wear a halo.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:38 am@DCSCA: And you drive a Tucker.
You can make money delivering high quality, delivering low quality, or at any level between; likewise you can lose money delivering any level of quality.
Not everybody needs or wants the highest quality in everything. Best to have lots of choices available. Tesla loses $40K on every car that goes out the door–because venture capital and the government are propping it up. So “Teslas for all” doesn’t sound very economically wise; nonetheless they are very high quality cars.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:44 am@21. And you drive a DeLorean.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 11:54 amNot everybody needs or wants the highest quality in everything.
Like, say… national healthcare… 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 12:00 pm@DCSCA:Like, say… national healthcare..
The nation that delivers the highest-quality possible national health care does not exist yet. Perhaps it never will exist. All existing systems have trade-offs between quality and availability; futhermore each system has different trade-offs. The system that has all the good things and none of the bad does not and cannot exist.
I see health care is the thing you put a halo on and declare that it shall not be sullied by vulgar economics. Yet it is a combination of goods and services supplied to consumers by producers, will you or nil you. You can even quote a movie, it won’t change the reality.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 12:04 pmSo glad you showed the weakness of his argument with a good post. This in spite of a bit of gender exclusivity:
What, money to be had is only available to males, and innovators and creators are limited to the gents among us?? Meh.
Dana (2f2c2c) — 8/14/2017 @ 12:23 pmThe nation that delivers the highest-quality possible national health care does not exist yet.
Hmmmm. Ask Leader McConnell… go full circle: ‘Google’ it:
On Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., added that the U.S. has “the finest health care system in the world.” – 7/1/2012 – source, http://www.politifact.com
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 12:45 pm@DCSCA: “the finest health care system in the world” does not mean ” the highest-quality possible national health care”.
Try not to lie about what I wrote anymore, okay?
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:04 pm@24. “The nation that delivers the highest-quality possible national health care does not exist yet.” – Freddy.
Try not to lie about what you wrote anymore, okay?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:10 pm@DCSCA: In 1700 the last of Queen Anne’s 17 pregnancies ended in stillbirth. Not one of her children survived to adulthood. She had access to “the finest health care system in the world”. It was most certainly not “the highest-quality possible national health care”.
You can tell the difference, and so can everyone else reading, so let’s not sacrifice truth for snark thanks.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:12 pmPatrick just blew his chance of ever landing a job at Google!
(Great post, otherwise though…)
Dave (445e97) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:12 pm@DCSCA: You are venturing into troll territory here. The “highest quality POSSIBLE”. POSSIBLE. Not “the best of what exists at the moment”.
Whether you can’t read, choose not to read, or choose to lie about what I said–and double down on lies–I am not responding to you anymore on this.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:13 pmPravdafacts superdave is funny that way.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:15 pmIn other words, DCSCA, the “finest in the world” is not the same as the “highest possible quality”. This is SO not hard. We all understand it when it suits us to.
Seriously, knock off being a troll and engage with what people actually wrote instead of trying to score snark points.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:15 pmagree with Patterico – don’t like it out smart em with the cards your dealt
mg (31009b) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:19 pm@30. Start-ups are advantaged when the base technology is evolving and an established competitor doesn’t recognize it. But the railroads and the phone company had to be busted up when absolute power corrupted absolutely. Unchecked, unregulated free market capitalism is it’s own worst enemy. Witness 2008 and the collapse of the banks and auto industry. On paper to ideologues, the ‘rules’ say let’em fail. The realities of the modern, interconnected world simply aren’t so elegant. Revisit the rules of Parker Bros., ever popular ‘Monopoly’ – you ‘win’ buy owning everything and destroying/bankrupting your sister [sorry, Dana] and the other players. Quaint for a board game but not so keen if you actually live, eat and sleep on Baltic Avenue.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:26 pm@33. Seriously? Stop twisting in the wind. This is SO not hard.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:28 pm@DCSCA 36: OK, be a troll then. Bye.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:30 pm@37. Maybe you drive an Edsel, not a DeLorean, after all.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:31 pmFrederick, whether intentionally or not, DCSCA seems to be missing the point, although your own statements are a little difficult to make sense of as well (even though I generally agree with everything you’ve said here). You say:
(emphasis added)
You are equating “the system that […] cannot exist” with “the highest-quality possible”.
If something cannot exist, I think most would say it is not possible.
I think you may mean to say a perfect (no trade-offs) national health-care system (for instance, the same level of health-care available to the president of the United States) does not exist anywhere in the world, and I agree with you. But your choice of words is a bit unfortunate.
Dave (445e97) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:39 pmThe primary beneficiaries of free enterprise are consumers.
Nyet.
The farmer doesn’t grow food to feed people; he/she grows it for the primary benefit: to make money.
Bankers don’t lend money at interest to better his/her fellow man; they do it for the primary benefit: to make money.
An insurance provider doesn’t peddle coverage to deliver affordable healthcare; it does it for the primary benefit: to make money.
“Money makes the world go ’round, the world go ’round…” – The Emcee [Joel Grey] ‘Cabaret’ 1972
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:47 pmPatterico, I think the quote you pulled from Schlichter says it all:
It used to be that folks on the Right would look at the Left, and their absolute lockstep support of anyone with a “D” after their name, as a problem. That their politics had become religion.
Then we get to see the Right do the same kind of thing.
Free speech is free speech. Or it isn’t. It really helps to reread “Animal Farm.” I just hope we don’t go all “Nineteen Eighty Four.” Because we are working on it, with everyone (and I mean everyone’s) “Two Minute Hate” approach to differences.
nk could come up with the correct type of Greek myth to describe this—-becoming the very things one abhores.
I think a good question for everyone is to ask what they believe in…and if that belief changes based on who does and says it.
We see it everywhere now in our social media bumpersticker brained sloganeering culture.
I just want to return to my own planet. Folks on Earth have gone crazy.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:49 pm@39. No. Understand his ‘point.’ Just disagree.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:49 pm@Dave: Thanks for disagreeing in a constructive way.
You are equating “the system that […] cannot exist” with “the highest-quality possible”.
I am explicitly not doing this. “The highest-quality possible national health care” system is the topic of the first two sentences. “The system that has all the good things and none of the bad” is the subject of the next two. At no point do I equate them; and in fact since I use different terms for eachI should in fairness be presumed to be talking about different things.
We are talking about varying levels of “possible”. “The highest quality possible system” which does not exist yet, may exist someday under some conditions, nanobots or some such, but “the system that has all the good and none of the bad” can never exist, because “good” and “bad” mean different things to different people and “bad” for some is “good” for others.
It’s like trying to set up a poker game where we can all win a little if we play carefully enough. Only if you redefine “poker game” to be something fundamentally different–and a person who does that is probably trying to run motte-and-bailey or fallacy of equivocation, and not arguing in good faith.
I think you may mean to say a perfect (no trade-offs) national health-care system (for instance, the same level of health-care available to the president of the United States) does not exist anywhere in the world
No, because that goes without saying.
My real point is “freedom is better”. Teslas are the best car on the market, but I don’t think that it makes sense to try to order society so that everyone has one, and health care is no different. We like to put a halo on it and remove it from economics, but providing health care entails allocation of scarce goods so it cannot be removed from economics. We know everyone wants the highest available quality at the lowest possible cost, that’s true for Teslas too. Yet we think if we’re clever enough we can jigger it so everyone gets a Tesla, but no one takes the $40K loss.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:51 pm@Simon Jester:Then we get to see the Right do the same kind of thing.
Belied by the post and this very comments section. Patterico is on the Right, and so are a lot of the commenters here, and they are disagreeing with Schlichter.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:52 pmFolks on Earth have gone crazy.
That’s why God left for vacation at His [sorry, Dana] ‘summer place’ on Alpha Centauri in August, 1968– and still hasn’t returned.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:57 pmMoney, incidentally, tends to confuse economics issues. You cannot eat money, or drive it to work, though you can make a poncho out of it, or paper your walls with it. As we’ve seen in Weimar and Zimbabwe, and we are seeing in Venezuela now, the existence of money does not magically produce the goods and services which we desire to exchange for money.
Easy to redistribute money, can be done by fiat. Much harder to distribute goods and services by fiat, because they don’t come into existence by fiat. Someone has to put their time and capital in.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 1:58 pmTeslas are the best car on the market, but I don’t think that it makes sense to try to order society so that everyone has one, and health care is no different.
Hmmm. Surprise: Tesla is gov’t financed.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:03 pmMuch harder to distribute goods and services by fiat…
Not as ‘hard’ as you may think; capital is “relative”– my own brother, an attorney no less, routinely barters legal services for goods and services. Of late, new carpeting, auto work, plumbing and electrical repair- even a new garage door and pet grooming.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:09 pmBingo.
Yes, but Patterico and those of us who would disagree with Schlicter and denounce the Trump personality cult now appear to be a minority on the right.
A few days ago a poll showed that a majority of Republicans would support Trump suspending the 2020 elections.
Sure, there are still people who haven’t lost their minds or sold their souls – Patterico, Jonah Goldberg, Allahpundit, David French, etc.
But Trump’s ascendance marked the transformation of the GOP into an ugly mirror image of the party of Alinsky, Sharpton, Pelosi and Reid: grievance politics for white people.
Dave (445e97) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:27 pm@DCSCA @ 2:03 pm: Surprise: Tesla is gov’t financed.
Not a surprise, as you could have learned from my 11:44 am:
–because venture capital and the government are propping it up.
my own brother, an attorney no less, routinely barters
What does barter have to do with fiat? Nothing. Your brother, of his own free will, chooses to take non-monetary payments. That is the very opposite of distribution by fiat, where he would be ordered to take non-monetary payments with that order backed by government force.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:38 pm@Dave:now appear to be a minority on the right.
I don’t think this is different. The free trade position has always had a selective appeal even within the GOP. Trump won the primary because he appealed to a lot of people in the GOP that the normal offerings did not appeal to. And Trump won the election because he appealed to a lot of people in the general population that the normal offerings of both parties did not appeal to.
Trump is the effect, and not the cause.
I’ve heard a lot about protection and “fair” trade from people who identify with Republicans for a long time. Ross Perot, remember, drew a lot of his support from Republicans who were against NAFTA.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:43 pm–because venture capital and the government are propping it up
But– and still- by your own words: Teslas are the best car on the market
Three cheers for Social Security and Medicare!!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:55 pm@DCSCA: Maybe a more concrete example will make it more clear what I am trying to say.
Suppose there is some crisis in Social Security, and to rectify it the government confiscates everyone’s IRAs and 401ks and replaces it with some kind of change in SS benefits and taxes going forward. That would be “distribution of money by fiat”. Easy to do, similar things happen from time to time in other countries. It’s all digits in tables.
“Distribution of goods and services by fiat” would mean that the government forces people to clothe, house, feed, and otherwise care for old people. Much, much harder to do.
And so the question of what money can buy becomes very pertinent. If in the process of redistributing the money by fiat, it becomes more difficult to reliably buy goods and services with money, well then you are on your way to joining Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
This might or might not happen if done one time for something like Social Security but if it becomes a habit of the government then it’s much more likely. And then you see an underground barter economy, which it seems your brother is already primed to do well in.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:55 pmStopper Dave is summer than a bag of hammer@jd.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:57 pm@DCSCA:But– and still- by your own words: Teslas are the best car on the market
In my opinion, they are, and in my opinion, nonetheless not worth purchasing at the offered price.
Yet the government picks my pocket to subsidize rich people. Just like Social Security and Medicare, which you have just cheered.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 2:57 pm@53. And then you see an underground barter economy, which it seems your brother is already primed to do well in.
Well, Freddy, it is an interesting ‘experiment’ to observe; two lawyers, married. The brother battling in out in the private sector, the wife moves paper as a government research attorney. Guess which one has the best bennies, perks, healthcare and retirement package. Hint– it ain’t my brother.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:01 pmThis is the me google that is in partnership with thela, somewhat similar to the partnership IBM had in pre war Germany, yet it tells us not to be evil
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:07 pm@DCSCA:Guess which one has the best bennies, perks, healthcare and retirement package. Hint– it ain’t my brother.
If I had the legal power to use force to compel people give me money, then I could set your brother up pretty well too.
But we can’t all live at taxpayer expense, you see.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:12 pm@57- Next chapter: “Baby Googles!” Saber rattle chopping up Google similar to the Bell System in the 80’s— or Standard Oil a century ago.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:18 pm@58. That’s the difference between ideological banter and life in the real world.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:20 pm@48 DCSCA
I’m sure he pays taxes on imputed income too.
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:33 pm@49 Dave
Is Suspending D. Election a D or an R?
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:37 pmDCSCA
If I pay 60 years on a Tesla and die my wife still has a Tesla she can drive or sell.
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:42 pm@55. Fredrick
It may be a great car in most circumstances but good luck if the power goes out for a week. And good luck with your SS and Medicare. Hope you have mountain home #10’s and some tiki torches.
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:51 pmThe answer was a resultvif a troll poll, like the agrabah one, also consult yes prime minister to shoe how its done.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:52 pm@pinandpuller:It may be a great car in most circumstances but good luck if the power goes out for a week.
Huh. If the power’s out for a week, people aren’t driving. At least not here, they wouldn’t, it’s because of our geography combined with the reason power is out for a week–rain and storms flooding roads and downing trees.
One of the many reasons I think, as I say, not worth the money at the offered price. Plenty of people with more money than I have disagree and I wouldn’t care if it were their money, but of course I’m being made to pay for their toys.
And good luck with your SS and Medicare.
We’ll all need that.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 3:55 pm@61 He do; they file a joint return and she’s a gov’t employee.
@63. And as w/most American toys: ‘batteries not included.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 4:02 pmDCSCA
All that carpeting and pet grooming doesn’t have him neck deep in benefits?
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/14/2017 @ 4:03 pmIf he could write like James Herriot he would be set for life.
@68 LOLLOL I’ll pass that along– but his penmanship is worse than a doctor’s.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 4:07 pmThe scent of ‘populism’ is strong around urbanite Trump; he may not realize that aroma could actually be from a compost heap.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 4:43 pmCarry on:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-report-idUSKCN1AU2GH
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 4:57 pm^That’s the silver lining benefit of broadcasting Antietam II to the rest of the world.
urbanleftbehind (26c93e) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:08 pmGoogle along with companies like Facebook ate like the cadre of coanires that secured Yeltsin victory in 2016, they Re a sysygy integrated into the bureaucracy and media
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:09 pm@66 Fredrick
Rick Grimes doesn’t drive a Tesla. Just sayin’.
It’s more likely a Tesla is a second or third car than a primary.
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:15 pmYou mean frank grimes fro the simpsons
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:19 pmI think the Dodge Challenger is the best car at the moment. Because it can turn into a Ram.
nk (dbc370) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:20 pmThe minute I buy a Tesla, hydrogen fuel cells will hit market. You know what will happen when I wash it.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:21 pm“think the Dodge Challenger is the best car at the moment. Because it can turn into a Ram.”
And happy feet gets banned.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:22 pmAh the sheriff from walking dead, got it.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:27 pmWell, get that high share price when bad publicity is great publicity: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fiat-chrysler-may-very-close-153257296.html
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:36 pmThat was a great deal with that bailout want it?
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:37 pm@pinandpuller:It’s more likely a Tesla is a second or third car than a primary.
That’s a very expensive and specialized machine to have as your primary daily driver and no, not every one would drive it every day or in every situation–though I do see people commuting in them. Doesn’t diminish the quality, though, if its driven infrequently. Do you wear your very best suit the most often? Some people might need to, and for others it would be ridiculous.
But that in a way is the whole point. Your idea of quality in a car is very different from mine. But a government that provided cars to all Americans as a matter of right would impose somebody’s ideas about quality on everyone, and make everyone pay for them.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:42 pmTucker Carlson argued tonight that Google should be regulated as a public utility.
I thought to myself: “How apt that the name of one of the many able competitors to Google that has arisen in our free market society is ‘Duckduckgo.com.'” I sometimes have had trouble remembering that name, but henceforth my mnemonic memory device will be a visual image of silly Tucker Carlson being shoo’d away like a particularly stupid mallard.
Carlson’s not a moron, but he goes whole-hog on utterly moronic positions, which he then wraps with smarm and douchbaggery. I thought at first it was just about the ratings, and I still think it’s mostly about the ratings — meaning, for him, about himself and the money and the status — but now I think he’s gotten to enjoy being a deliberate douchebag quite a bit too much just for the juvenile guilty thrill of that. He’s like the small boy waiting for his sister to notice the dog poop he left in her underwear drawer, practicing his straight-faced righteous indignation a little too hard before he’s accused. He’s not yet as intolerable as Hannity, but he’s already matched his predecessor, O’Reilly, in general odor.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:46 pmI guess I could have lived with it if the bunga bunga boy was still in charge. My experiences with LG phones and their plug in chargers does not convince me I should give the future Chinese majority held Chrysler brands a shot.
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:50 pmNobody’s kicked him in the teeth or drew a gun in him, Beldar. It should be a younger more battle ready version of Ralph Peters, the closest to a worthy adversary he has faced.
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 8/14/2017 @ 5:54 pmI own a Chrysler its from right the before the deluge fwiw.
Tucker has nit gone along with top men fainting couches crowd like say the podlet. Take shep smith please.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:02 pmOT, but: Everyone today is talking about Mattis’ comments about what will happen if the Norks start shooting at us.
On a daily basis for years, Saddam’s anti-aircraft gunners shot at U.S. and other coalition forces (but yeah, mostly U.S. pilots) enforcing the no-fly zone that we enforced between the Kuwait War and the Iraq War. Our pilots knew that, and they and our technology kept the Iraqis from even getting lucky one time. This was listed among the casus belli in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, and as far as I’m concerned it was reason enough all by itself to topple Saddam’s government.
But shooting as an act of war is not nearly so obvious as Mattis’ comments today made it seem, and it specifically has not been treated as such in our and our South Korean ally’s prickly dealings with the Norks since the Armistice in 1953. See, e.g., the USS Pueblo Incident; the Axe Murder Incident; the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong; the ROKS Cheonan Incident; et cetera.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:02 pmBecause the scale if tube response is different? Daddam could not pulverize Kuwait city like un can do to Seoul their chemical and biological stockpiles are much more robust, then we have their expanded nuclear option , enabled in pat by Ukrainian and/or Russian armories. Now first contact with us forces only briefly happened some forty years so that an unknown variable
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:11 pm@82… impose somebody’s ideas about quality on everyone…
That’s not necessarily bad. Personally, USDA Prime cuts are tastier than USDA Choice; marbling enhances flavor- except in Trump Steaks. As we know, they’re perfect; tender, tasty and ‘yuge,’ seasoned only w/Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:11 pmHow would Amazon be classed as utilities?
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:22 pmI don’t see corroboration. All I see is the usual ‘imminent threat teleprompter readings.
https://www.axios.com/north-korea-calls-off-guam-threat-2473027328.html
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:28 pmYou’re kidding, right? Amazon provides a public service and information infrastructure. This ain’t the 1950’s any more. Cell phone companies are utilities too and they also did not exist when the term was created.
Rev.Hoagie® (630eca) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:33 pm@ Rev. Hoagie, #92:
Amazon is not a utility in the sense you seem to be using the word — that is, they’re not a public service. They’re a marketplace.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:38 pmDamore is Winston smith, before they send him to room 101, Facebook has propagandized slm and occupy 24/7 there are tiny snippets of the signal that break through. Take Yahoo at any given second of the day, all which is embedded with hupuffington, Twitter that kept terrorist incitement for years at a time
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:39 pmI just asked a question. What’s the beef? 1935 PUA was directed at electricity. Gas and telephones added later but providing a public service is not the only qualification.
PUBLIC UTILITIES. Businesses that provide the public with necessities, such as water, electricity, natural gas, and telephone and telegraph communication. … Public utilities provide water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, and other essentials.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:43 pmpublic utility facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com …
Encyclopedia.com › public-utility
Feedback
P
I ask because small bizness killer Wal-Mart is stirring up talk about killing their superior competitor. Not that I think it’s good for all that Amazon fominence. They aren’t often the cheapest, so the door is open to a similar business model.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:47 pmApparently fominence isn’t even a Scrabble word.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:50 pmIt’s perfectly cromulent, every institution has been weaponized against us, yet some Stu think its just a flesh wound.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 6:52 pmThe people’s will worked the same way as did the brigatte
http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/14/left-wing-agitators-call-for-escalated-tactics-in-response-to-charlottesville/
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:36 pmLast few lines of post are a quote from Alec Baldwin’s rant in Glengarry Glen Ross.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:39 pmhttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/report-claims-north-korea-obtained-rocket-engines-ukrainian-factory/
MICHAEL ELLEMAN, International Institute for Strategic Studies: “The engines they [North Korea] are using for the longer-range missiles has an appearance that’s very similar to a well-known engine family that originates in Russia and Ukraine.”
Told ‘ya.
Keep an eye on the missile launch performance envelopes, trajectories and so forth. The next phase is to either test a miniaturized nuke underground and/or loft a missile to deep space mated w/a conventional warhead of same size/weight to the nuke in an integrated system and detonate it at apogee. Whether they actually detonate a nuke in deep space is ‘up for grabs’ as it were, but the weight of the warhead and detonation of same is key now. Re-entry is a problem to solve down the road.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:50 pmYou were saying
https://www.wired.com/story/delorean-aerospace-flying-car/
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:51 pmThe essential element of a public utility is that it is providing a service that is essential, but that would be impossible or at least economically impractical for more than one company to provide, typically because of problems of scale and the huge upfront capitalization required. In exchange for a government-granted and -enforced monopoly, the utility permits government to regulate its rates; sometimes government actually owns the business too, but not always. Sewage and water are common examples. Intercity railroads were once treated as a type of public utility, hence the ICC. Electricity is less regulated now than formerly, but still heavily regulated. And so forth.
Among the most controversial — but then least consequential, as it turned out — pieces of New Deal legislation was the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which was intended by FDR’s Whiz Kids to address concentrations of ownership among privately-owned publicly-regulated utilities.
Trivia for today: I am among the small handful of lawyers, surely less than two dozen, who have ever represented litigants before a United States District Court in an injunction action brought to enforce the PUHCA — aka “the ’35 Act,” as New Deal historians and we hearty few PUHCAers still call it, to put it on a par with other major New Deal legislation like the ’33 Act (i.e., the Securities Act of 1933) and the ’34 Act (i.e., the Securities Exchange Act of 1934).
When there are multiple independent sources that offer the same, or essentially the same, service, there is no conceivable justification — except improper ones, in which government power is used to pick economic winners and losers in the cycle of graft of which both the Clintons and Trump have been lifelong devoted creatures — for government to restrict production to a single seller or to regulate the prices at which those sales take place.
Google offers many services in addition to its free search engines — Gmail, for example — but it’s only the search engine service that Carlson was talking about. Carlson’s supposed justification for regulating Google is its huge market share — i.e., the large number of consumers who prefer it in uncoerced open-market transactions where they trade submission to advertising for internet searching — and the supposed critical importance of search engines (since “they pick the news we read” or some such wild hyperbole). This is horse crap from the over-glib frat boy, whom I’m quite sure actually knows and understands that there are indeed alternatives to Google’s search engine services and always have been. There were companies which offered free search engine searching before Google, including Yahoo!, and others which started after, including the above-mentioned duckduckgo.com and, with vastly better capitalization and promotion, Microsoft’s Bing.com.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:53 pmCurse those freebies like WPA and some financial help for widows/orphans due to disability or early death.
“Aren’t there workhouses..”
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:57 pmGoogle’s is best because of its size, in part.
Monopoly is good, when it does not result from governmental privilege.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/14/2017 @ 7:59 pm“I suppose you’ll be wanting the whole of Christmas day off….with pay eh nephew?
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:00 pm.
Market share is just a proxy for information dominance, consider that valiant crusade against a certain nere’ do well, how many know of it.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:00 pm@102. LOLOLOLOL
A battery-powered, manned drone; not much trunk space nor stainless steel construct…
Still have an amusing little book from the late ’50s on helicopters and how we’d all have heliocars parked in our garages by the 1970’s. Kept it for the art work.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:00 pmThere’s no end to the free stuff the people demand.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:01 pmThe question that study raised is how were these boosters shipped to North Korea, did the end user certificates if so who authorized then and how.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:06 pmThe best news for Trump this week is the cancellation of EPA employer-paid Gym memberships. That should be low-hanging fruit, but it probably equates to a basis point of the Agency’s budget.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:07 pmGoogle has no monopoly.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:12 pm@110– The question focuses on derivative and performance profile through modifications. They’re in the same family; too good for NK to have developed/engineered on their own. Chances are some undersea snooping, some place, has been looking for and/or found a spent stage or two by now. But the performance signatures are hard to hide. And likely they wouldn’t want to; makes for good propaganda.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:13 pmI was too terse.
Of course it doesn’t.
But if it did — simply because its search engine was the best, because of its size — that would be good.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:17 pmIt’s probably overly provocative to simply assert bold things like this without taking the time to explain them.
But the explanations are out there. And the link I gave is a nice start.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:17 pmWatching the oh-so-obvious concern-Trolling news feeds. China knows the threat is underwhelming and that’s why they aren’t concerned. Yeah, the Chinese sell them all their stuff, but what’s the market share? They’d rather let the Paper Tiger step on his di*k and keep US busy with side dishes.
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:19 pmMonopolies are ‘good’ until they’re bad. Revisit Standard Oil and the Bell System. The film industry ‘monopoly’ was broken up in the 50’s as well when the studio system controlled not only contracted personnel but production and product distribution in their theatre chains. Theatre control was whacked and the studio system began to decentralize.
Wouldn’t surprised if ‘Baby Googles’ came to be later in this century if/when Google grows too big for its diapers.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:23 pmChina scoops everything it’s maw like the dreadnought in that trek episode.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:24 pmConvincing folks that monopolies are good is indeed a harder burden of persuasion to undertake than merely persuading someone that there are many alternatives to Google’s search engine, which ought to be the end of any discussion of regulating Google as a utility. I was interpreting you correctly. I don’t fault you for being provocative either, which does make the blog more interesting and bring you readers, because unlike Carlson, you’re not being intellectually dishonest in the process of being interesting.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:27 pmGoogle has no monopoly.
Let’s “Ask Jeeves.”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:28 pm“Why should Google have the power to dictate what the world sees and thinks?”
^^^ Subjected myself to that drivel twice just to get the quote for y’all.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:31 pm121.
Perhaps You can answer a question I get vagaries on.
Why is opposition reading matter so scary? Or contagious..?
Ben burn (c33779) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:40 pmDon’t worry about it Beldar, Google , theblesson of Microsoft and had bAttalions of lawyers one of who me is the new anti trust chief.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:50 pmRe:#94
The following quote, from a statement by anarchist group, the Revolutionary Abolition Movement, praising antifa (bold is mine):
“Jobs saved” anyone?
felipe (023cc9) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:53 pm@122. FWIW, driven past one of those Google map imaging cars– you know, the ones w/t cameras mounted on top taking ground level images for their mapping app– twice now in the past few months. It’s kinda creepy.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:53 pmThat’s a rather vizzinism:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/14/sundar-pichai-decison-to-fire-james-damore-over-google-memo-raises-trust-question-reynolds-column/564400001/
narciso (d1f714) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:56 pm125. What do you mean?
Ben burn (515793) — 8/15/2017 @ 7:47 amBeldar has a challenging style. His sophistry is impeccable.
Ben burn (515793) — 8/15/2017 @ 7:48 amBest mom-beaters ideology can buy..
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/james-fields-held-bond-fatal-charlottesville-crash-article-1.3410210
Ben burn (515793) — 8/15/2017 @ 7:55 amThe most significant data breach in the last 50 years was the federal Office of Personnel Management’s loss of nearly all federal security clearance applications — to the Chinese — a hack that continued for about two years.
Since these records contained nearly everything (drug use, sexual preferences, medical records, previous relationships, criminal record if any) that might be known about each individual it’s a bit more than even Google knows.
And these are the people who want to tell others what to do? (Yes, I know, it’s Screw Google and the details (and logic) aren’t important, but really!)
Now, I do believe that some recourse should be available to individuals who have their personal information exposed, by whomever, but it needs to be carefully defined (my email provider does not know my SSN, etc) and apply more forcefully to data miners and other surreptitious gatherers than to those who have obtained specific permission.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 8:29 amThe free trade position has always had a selective appeal even within the GOP.
Reagan made that a cornerstone of GOP platforms for decades. Very few stood against it, mostly those became known as “paleo-conservatives” such as Pat Buchanan. It’s not “free trade” that is the problem, but the continued protectionism by our “free trade” partners.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 8:37 amThe problem I have with Google is the breadth of information it gollums. Do you have an Android phone? Do you leave GPS on? Google captures your path every day. It’s how they do such great traffic apps (Maps, Waze, etc). Access a web site on you phone (through any browser)? Google’s there, too. Address books, phone log, schedules, etc. Google knows those, too.
Now, it may be that Google doesn’t keep these records, or abstracts them into statistics, or does not mine what it stores for you. But you have no effing idea and their EULAs on their myriad products doesn’t clearly say (assuming you’ve read them, which you haven’t).
Not just Google; Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc. And they share. I go onto the Amazon site after googling “kitchen faucets” and lo an behold, Amazon has kitchen faucets I might want to consider. Even small fry writing apps seem to grasp for extra information. Why a dictionary app needs to access my GPS info is beyond me.
Obviously some rules need to be set out — it is far too much for the consumer to understand, or keep track of even if s/he does understand. And the consumer should have the right to sue when this data is breached, even if it was held by government.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 8:57 amSomewhere along the line while claiming to fight fascism, Kurt Schlichter became a fascist himself.
Nick M. (d6362a) — 8/15/2017 @ 9:04 am“Fascist” is such a miused word it’s meaningless now. Try “statist”; it’s what you mean, anyway.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:21 am@Kevin M:Obviously some rules need to be set out — it is far too much for the consumer to understand, or keep track of even if s/he does understand.
The consumer can choose to pay much more for hardware and put much more time into software selection and maintenance if their privacy is worth so much to them. Millions of people do this already.
But consumers have shown, by their actions, that they just don’t care that much.
If there really were some rules, or a law like there outta be, they would not be able to offer free software and cheap hardware. You would drive up prices for all consumers, and restricting all consumers choices about how to value their privacy.
People not bothering to find out what is being done with their data are also making a choice. An uninformed one. As is their right.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:25 amNot misused…Fascism. a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
Good example
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/14/donald-trump-inauguration-protest-website-search-warrant-dreamhost
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:27 amBen burn’s definition of “fascism” almost, but not quite, fails entirely to describe Kurt Schlichter. He is not advocating anything on that list. Schlichter does have a scary Teutonic name, I’ll grant. But he’s not advocating anything that the Left in this country, which rejects the “fascist” label, does not routinely call for.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:30 amFrederick must be referencing the Left’s racial animus toward red-neck whites who’ve forgotten their black Irish roots.
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:35 amBelligerent Nationalism?
Nativist?
Yes. All Lefty protocols..
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:37 amOf course, had Obama directed Holder to raid Breitbart…
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:38 amPeople not bothering to find out what is being done with their data are also making a choice. An uninformed one. As is their right.
OK, Mr “Informed”, which of your phone apps have access to what data? No fair peeking.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:42 amOrin Kerr thinks it’s overreach
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/15/a-closer-look-at-dojs-warrant-to-collect-website-records/
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:43 amNot going to feed
Trolls who won’t read
Regulating Google is not “Belligerent Nationalism” or “Nativist”, and it’s the kind of thing the Left advocates all the time.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:43 am@KEvin M:OK, Mr “Informed”, which of your phone apps have access to what data? No fair peeking.
I don’t care. I use them anyway. I make that choice–and I never claimed to be “informed” about them.
My home computer is different. Everything I use is open-source and most of it I compiled myself. Consequently my computer is less easy to use, but I prefer it that way. I do not use Chrome or any other app that I don’t control what it reports (I turn all that off anyway, I can do that at the firewall).
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:45 amFascism, as Mussolini defined it, involved the three fasces, Government, Labor, and Business, all united under a single directing power (Mussolini). Usually nationalism, militarism and a class structure are involved but that isn’t the basis for the name.
I guess the reason fascism has failed is that we’ve never seen True Facsism™ tried.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:47 amAnd I make that choice, Kevin. I do not demand there be a law to make that choice for me and everyone else. I think most people would be better off if they knew how their machines worked and put time into maintenance and security–but other adults have different needs and priorities and I am not the person to tell them that their needs and priorities must fit mine by legal fiat.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:47 amEverything I use is open-source and most of it I compiled myself.
Unless you read the source, this is meaningless.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:48 am“But he’s not advocating anything that the Left in this country, which rejects the “fascist” label, does not routinely call for.”
Apparently reading comprehension is another projection of the Right.
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:48 am@Kevin M:Unless you read the source, this is meaningless.
No it isn’t. I can turn off data reporting at the firewall if need be. I can control program permissions. I don’t have to know exactly which bits are banged to be in control. I simply have to understand what I need to do and why.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:49 amIt’s funny how anyone who presents unpopular facts is AutoTrolled.
Nice defense mechanism
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:50 amThey just can’t handle arguments outside a very narrow band of thinking.
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:52 amTrolls are called out as trolls when they act like trolls. Trolls post things that are content-free and call them facts. But they are not.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:52 amIf you know your father’s name and have a job, you’re a Fascist.
nk who speaks Antifa (dbc370) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:52 amHence, the fact-free breakdown of your counter .
It absolves you of any accountability Fred.
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:54 amFrederick,
Who the F cares what choice YOU make? Do you REALLY think that this is a Libertarian society? Do you think that people should behave as if it was? Talk about rainbow clouds.
The fact that YOU leave your doors unlocked (and perhaps own a gun) does not mean that there shouldn’t be burglary laws. Nor does it mean that electrifying your doormat is acceptable behavior.
We have laws and rules because of assholes. Requiring a title search when selling a house is not there just to enrich a title search company, or to harass home buyers. It’s because some asshole somewhere sold 15 houses someone else owned.
I hope that you are happy on Libertarian Island. I used to live there, but then I wised up. It’s a delusion that leaves you on the stupid end of every deal in the real world.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:56 amSee no evil..hear no..
Cover your ears…trolls afoot!
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:56 amArguments made without reference to facts, are refutable without reference to facts. Trolls gonna troll, best ignore. By their fruits you know them. They always try to make it about personalities rather than issues.
People I disagree with, who are not trolls, like Kevin M, stick to the discussion at hand and don’t speculate about my motives or cognitive limitations, which is just ad hominem.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 10:57 am@Kevin M: Why don’t you just unplug your router if you’re worried about it? Treat your box like it’s 1989. Go back to a dumb phone. You have lots of choices. You don’t need laws for this one. This isn’t murder or theft. This is you voluntarily getting a smartphone that you don’t understand. Why not, instead of trying to control everybody, which cannot be done, control yourself?
A company like Google is going to be heavily involved in writing the laws that regulate it, my friend, it is the same in every industry.
And you could dial back the emotional register there, sir.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:01 am“don’t speculate about my motives or cognitive limitations..”
I guess it’s a genuine disability for you to not notice you cast the first stone..but I’m afraid you have lots of company.
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:02 amBen burn is upset the resistance were not able to claim more lives like that limo they flambeed on inauguration day.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:03 amNarciso was upset there were only three Nuns to murder in San Salvador.
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:05 am@narcisco: Let’s not feed the troll. Unfortunately unfed trolls have to ability to continue to defecate in threads. Let’s at least not use its name, though. I never should have referenced it–but I think even Schlichter deserves fairness. He’s wrong, but not fascist. He just wants to boss people. Most plains apes do. I am not immune to the urge either–I am fortunate to have no power and thus I cannot be tempted to abuse it.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:05 amFrederick has the Phear..
Ben burn (2b8e3a) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:07 amO haven’t been here for hours our host has no problem with and Simon can barely be spared a word, he is re cnfrere of the vandals on Durham and dc,
narciso (d1f714) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:11 amLet’s start small.
Suppose the feds made it illegal for a cloud provider to search cloud files for content? (They won’t. but only because GOVERNMENT wants the ability to do that themselves, or cause the provider to do so for them — not because the government is upholding some principle). But suppose they did. Why would this cause my cloud storage costs to go up?
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:12 am@Kevin M:Suppose the feds made it illegal for a cloud provider to search cloud files for content? Why would this cause my cloud storage costs to go up?
Because they would not have the option to offset lower costs to you with the ability to use your information for their profit.
If you are paying full freight for cloud storage already and your agreement with that provider already forbids that use, then no, you would not necessarily see your costs go up–unless they were making money from others with less restrictive agreements and giving you a lower price because they are making more off the others.
Starting even smaller, spend $100 with Pat’s Amazon portal and get yourself a few TB of storage completely under your control. It’s not hard to set it up so that it’s available on your network to all your computers at home. Like anything else DIY, you have to put the time in.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:17 amSuppose that 90% of the population is utterly clueless about computers and technical matters in general. They wouldn’t know the TCP/IP handshake from a 7-Up. To them FTP is someone who sends you flowers.
Government’s JOB is to protect citizens from the trepidations of others. That may be, upon recognizing that 90% of the citizenry are using tools that can do them great harm, to require those tools have safety features. Chainsaws, guns, ladders, web browsers.
Just because DuckDuckGo says it isn’t doing bad things doesn’t mean it isn’t. Consider Google’s motto.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:18 am@82 Fredrick
Heh, I don’t have a suit. Never owned one. I’m sure the government would fit me for a jacket.
My sarcastic idea for national health care is to require everyone to get a CDL.
Pinandpuller (975b5d) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:19 amYou see, Frederick, most people consider the time you take in vetting all those products to be impossibly costly. Even if they were capable, they would not want to do it. So, they would accept a minor price bump (call it a “tax”) for some insurance that the next app they download won’t drain their bank account.
Again, you are living on Self Sufficiency Island. Most people WANT to live in a village, and don’t wnat to be on their guard all the time.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:22 am@Kevin M:Government’s JOB is to protect citizens from the trepidations of other
Then it’s a protection racket… Look, I’m not an anarchist. We are agree that government has something worthwhile to do, but we’re talking about where the line is. So there’s no point in bringing up that our taxes pay the Navy to keep the sea lanes open.
My point is not that government should never protect us from each other. My point is that in this case you have so many choices, many of which are free (in terms of money) that we don’t need government coercion, and most of us are showing through our actions that we really just don’t care. Who do you think doesn’t know that their ISP knows they click on pr0n?
I’m behind 7 proxies, so good luck.
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:22 am@Kevin M:Again, you are living on Self Sufficiency Island
Not a bit. There’s lots of things I don’t attempt to do for myself. As with you. Again, we’re talking about where the line is.
We lived quite well without smartphones and cloud storage and Google, and after a mere ten years with them we can’t do without if we choose, or accept what they offer knowing (or not caring) about the strings attached? How is this so presssing a problem that the government must intervene?
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:25 amI would circumscribe the search warrants to those planning violent action, the San Bernardino apple paradigm is in the back of mind
narciso (d1f714) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:30 amKevin M:Government’s JOB is to protect citizens from the trepidations of other
Then it’s a protection racket
Well, that’s actually a Libertarian idea — preventing force or fraud, as opposed to making you wear bicycle helmets.
Sure, I do not want to have the government have to sign off on every app before it can go to market, but it CAN mark some practices as illegal, just as it does burglary, and prosecute violators.
With the giants like Google or Facebook, that by their nature become something you cannot easily avoid, government can be more involved. Probably needs to. It may, for example, have rules about the scope of EULAs in the same way that contract law limits the scope of contracts.
It may also want to let Google know that, just because the EULA is silent, that doesn’t mean “anything goes.” For example, You might not want Google degrading web rankings on the basis of political alliances or their lack.
Now, for me, regulation is maybe something whose time has come and if done properly it isn’t political. Certainly not the “Hulk Smash!” flavor of regulation proposed.
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 12:12 pmI note that some are calling for Facebook/Google/etc to bar “far right” comments from the Internets. While it is true that the 1st Amendment isn’t currently enforced against private actors, other parts of the Constitution are (e.g. the cake-baking and gay marriage amendments).
Suppose the control of the marketplace of ideas becomes even more unified than it is. If 95% of all political discussion happens on a Facebook page, does the 1st Amendment have any real meaning any more? Sure, you can always set up a blog on a spare computer, but that’s not really a serious answer.
At what point does a private entity take on the trappings of government, and do they become subject to its limitations when they do?
Kevin M (752a26) — 8/15/2017 @ 12:18 pm@174 At what point does a private entity take on the trappings of government, and do they become subject to its limitations when they do?
I think there’s some 1st Amendment law out there on this point in what I’ll call “shopping mall cases”. My vague (unvouched-for) recollection is that some such rights have been recognized, but, frankly, what rulings there have been, how consistent those rulings are, and how far up the chain they’ve gone, etc. – well… there’s a research project for you, then! (And how they might or might not apply analogously in this neck of the woods.) And quite conceivably there may be cases far more directly on point than the “shopping mall cases” for all I know.
Q! (267694) — 8/15/2017 @ 12:33 pm@Kevin M:preventing force or fraud, as opposed to making you wear bicycle helmets.
Force and fraud, ok start there. Which category does Google’s use of your information, or its page ranking algorithms, fall under? Is it force or is it fraud, and what makes it so?
Frederick (64d4e1) — 8/15/2017 @ 1:08 pm114. Patterico (115b1f) — 8/14/2017 @ 8:17 pm
Only for a limited period of time. Maybe 15 years, maybe 20 years, maybe 30 years. But maybe only for just 7 to 10 years.
With time it can go bad, but it still has the monopoly. So even if it was something good taht caused the monopoly, the monopoly itself isn’t good.
Many cities have only major newspaper. It probably achieved its monopoly position because it was the best newspaper in the city at the time. But I don’t think you think the Los Angeles Times still deserves its virtual monopoly position.
Sometimes maybe a business culture can last a a long time. But it can still go bad after 75, or 100 years.
Sometimes, though, because the givernment changes the regulations. Look at what happened to AT&T after 1983. Regulations in part kept it a very good company (although it didn’t allow the purchase of phones for a long time till it lost a court case around 1968)
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/15/2017 @ 1:17 pmTrump’s presence is everywhere.
Lucas (29a5a4) — 8/15/2017 @ 11:22 pmtranslate Spanish to English
Skipping the back story, we have needed to put a lock-set that worked on our beautiful 2-inch oak front door for fifteen years. So we finally brought a locksmith over and he quoted $1,200 dollars. Plus he also wanted to drill more holes which more holes is not good for a 90-year old door. I went to Google and surfed. I can do the job myself, using the existing holes, for $200 to $500 (depending on how fancy I want the hardware).
God bless you, Mr. Google.
nk (dbc370) — 8/22/2017 @ 8:23 amSeeing the propublica purge, and googlrs of sail mehta does that give you pausem
narciso (d1f714) — 8/22/2017 @ 8:36 amLenin warned about momentary interests but $1,000 is $1,000.
nk (dbc370) — 8/22/2017 @ 8:48 amA not so gentle fisting, er, fisking, of this post:
I couldn’t care less what policies Google propounds and believe they have a right to freely express same.
But, when Google gets to decide what others may say, read, or buy, well, I get a little worked up. Most people don’t understand that the flow of news and other information is censored by Google (as well as Facebook, Apple, and Amazon).
Patterico’s full throated defense of “free markets” (and that “monopolies are good”) while manna to the likes of The National Review sort, totally misses the mark by miles. Here are just a few of the many examples of the uneven playing field in search, news, and commerce. Having spent the majority of my life in Silicon Valley, I know this anti-competitive behavior is by design. Here’s where we’re at right now:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/you-should-be-outraged-at-googles-anti-competitive-behavior/2017/07/07/e117b704-5de1-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html?utm_term=.0ae51c4f0451
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/google-is-losing-allies-across-the-political-spectrum/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/reporter-google-successfully-pressured-me-to-take-down-critical-story/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/30/zephyr-teachout-google-is-coming-after-critics-in-academia-and-journalism-its-time-to-stop-them/
Yup, and if you don’t like it, it’s sooooo easy to start your own search engine! Just like Larry and Sergey! I hate to burst your bubble, but garage startups? Mostly myth – there are a couple of exceptions (Apple is one, but they didn’t “supplant” IBM). There were millions of dollars stuffed in Brin’s and Page’s pockets by Silicon Valley VC and angels, along with a very specific business plan to corner the search market, and hence, ad revenue, news, etc. Think the Hunts and silver. While at Stanford, they were well known to the VC on Sand Hill Rd (Stanford is a fertile grooming ground for tech oligarchs). Page and Brin weren’t some accidental rags to riches story. Yes, they were and are brilliant and yes, they’ve executed their business plan. But believe me, they never believed their own motto, “Do No Evil”.
As to the implication Bill Gate’s Microsoft and Steve Job’s Apple supplanted IBM: completely false.
Microsoft supplied an operating system, and soon after, applications, for IBM’s PC hardware. IBM’s market share grew to well north of 90%. IBM never intended to write an OS or applications for the PC. Microsoft and IBM weren’t competing against one another. They were symbiotic.
Apple’s market share against IBM or clone PCs never reached 10%, as I recall. Apple never made inroads into IBM’s core market at the time – the corporate market for PCs. IBM dominated there, more or less, until they sold their PC hardware business to Lenovo. Meanwhile Apple bolstered its market share in the personal home computing, graphic design, and academia markets.
To suggest that someone today could start a search company that’s competitive with Google exhibits a complete lack of understanding of how the tech industry works and how Google uses it technology to keep others from competing on a level playing field.
Bottom line, while Schlichter’s reasoning is flawed, his prescription is correct.
Lenny (5ea732) — 9/1/2017 @ 3:00 pm