Do you think telecoms should enjoy government-enforced monopolies? Are you in favor of abolishing those, opening up the spectrum, etc.?
Do you think that has any chance of happening? If not, are you then in favor of regulating them as the public utilities they are?
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On the original topic:
The economic malaise of the 70s was the exact opposite of what we have today. It was a supply constrained economy, with high interest rates and not enough money available for investment but plenty available to consumers. The result was "stagflation," rising prices with no growth. Ours is more like the 30s malaise-- demand constrained, with low interest rates and plenty of money for investment but nothing to invest it in. They've been trying to goose inflation for years with no effect (beyond inflating assets) because everyone is drowning in debt and wages are flat. This looks nothing like the 70s.
The "socialists" were right in the 30s, then they were wrong in the 70s. Now they're right again. In 30 years they'll probably be wrong again. In economics nobody gets to be right for very long, because an economic theory creates an incentive structure that rewards people for acting so as to invalidate it. Ecosystems are the same way... full of feedback loops and paradoxes.
> Do you think telecoms should enjoy government-enforced monopolies? Are you in favor of abolishing those
They were mostly abolished in the 1996 Telecom Act.
> opening up the spectrum, etc.?
Modern LTE networks are built on auctioned, not gifted, spectrum. Interestingly, spectrum auctions arose out of economic research into the inefficiencies of FDR-era spectrum licensing, which did not charge for spectrum licenses, but rather gave them away with a bunch of "public interest" strings attached. That's why we're still wasting hundreds of prime MHz on broadcast television.
The 1996 Telecom Act's competition requirements were gutted several years later, hence the near total elimination of competition in the DSL and phone service markets.
I was more motivated by the fact that this is an otherwise very interesting thread, and I didn't think arguments by economic mood affiliation had much to add, neither in facts conveyed nor broader economic truth.
Do you think telecoms should enjoy government-enforced monopolies? Are you in favor of abolishing those, opening up the spectrum, etc.?
Do you think that has any chance of happening? If not, are you then in favor of regulating them as the public utilities they are?
--- On the original topic:
The economic malaise of the 70s was the exact opposite of what we have today. It was a supply constrained economy, with high interest rates and not enough money available for investment but plenty available to consumers. The result was "stagflation," rising prices with no growth. Ours is more like the 30s malaise-- demand constrained, with low interest rates and plenty of money for investment but nothing to invest it in. They've been trying to goose inflation for years with no effect (beyond inflating assets) because everyone is drowning in debt and wages are flat. This looks nothing like the 70s.
The "socialists" were right in the 30s, then they were wrong in the 70s. Now they're right again. In 30 years they'll probably be wrong again. In economics nobody gets to be right for very long, because an economic theory creates an incentive structure that rewards people for acting so as to invalidate it. Ecosystems are the same way... full of feedback loops and paradoxes.