[Info-vax] Itanium and the NY antitrust suit against Intel

[Paul Raulerson]

Life isn't perfect, and Neil is exactly right, in my  opinion.  We need government to keep checks on out of control capitalism, 
but we also need the populace to keep  control on government. 

All in all, in North America, it always balances out that way, though it may sometimes take decades to do so. 

And it is unpleasant to live during the times when it is overbalanced either way. Right now in the U.S., we have vicious
hatefilled unthinking "tea party" activists on one side, and smarter but just as vicious people on all the other sides. 
Except the greens of course. They just are not as smart at all.  :) 

Intel will do everything it can to secure a monopoly for itself, and that includes destroying any competition, supporting government regulations that make it near impossible for a small startup to happen (Sarbanes Oxley, for instance) and will present a public face of being a fine benefactor.  WalMart does the same thing of course, as does any other large company, HP and IBM included. 

The best possible check on them is government regulation, though not so much as to strangle them. And the only possible check on the government is the populace - the voting citizens. 

-Paul

On Nov 29, 2009, at 7:09 AM, JF Mezei wrote:

> Neil Rieck wrote:
>> 
>> In the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years there was a commonly held belief by
>> all citizens (in all western countries) that government should get out
>> of the way of business. 
> 
> Canada's current government, the reform party headed by George W Harper
> has the same mentality, especially when it comes to mr Rieck's employer:
> Its policies are to let market forces work their magic, and the
> government conveniently forgets that Bell Canada is still, to a large
> extent, a monopoly and its actions of recent have been focused on
> preventing competition in the ISP business. In fact, the GW Harper
> cabinet is about to rule within the next 10 days  to overturn one of the
> few CRTC decisions that was on the consumer's side and allow Bell Canada
> to restrict competitors to slow DSL speeds and prevent them access to
> streetside pedestals (forcing very long copper loops to the CO where
> ADSL speeds will be even slower).
> 
> So you use of "all citizens" should be changed to "some citizens".
> 
> Customers of ISPs who purchase  access from the Bell canada monopoly are
> very aware that we are being screwed by a monopoly while the government
> claims there is healthy competition. On 3 occasions, the CRTC condoned
> throttling of certain applications 10 hour per day to less than 240kbps,
> ignoring the Telecom Act which prohibits discrimination and prohibits
> the changing of the purpose of a telecommunications. (Bell's argument is
> that those transfers being crippled are not important and can take
> longer to accomplish, that is akin to saying that a voice conversation
> isn't important unless you use a red telephone at both ends :-)
> 
> At least the FCC forced Comcast to manage its network and service speeds
> in a non discriminatory way.
> 
> The CRTC is fully aware that bell is breaking the Telecom Act, but their
> "Policy directive" set by the political arm of the government (GW
> Harper) is forcing their hand to write decisions that somehow twist the
> meaning of the Telecom Act to justify/support Bell Canada's actions.
> 
> And this from a governmnet that supposedly passed laws to prevent
> corporate donations to political parties.  Perhaps Bell is giving that
> party free long distance, free use of the Bell corporate jet for an
> afternoon game of golf in the bermuda or florida or whatever other type
> of "help" Bell might give to the government in exchange for the
> government interpreting the law in Bell's favour.
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