You are here Corporate Welfare
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-07-23 12:12
You can tell a lot about the true soul of people by how they treat the vulnerable and disadvantaged; do they naturally seek to help and protect those in need or do they instinctively seek to exploit others weaknesses for their own monetary or other gain?
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Or after a disaster, do people help with supplies, water, and a helping hand or do they opportunistically price gouge or seek to make a quick buck off of others misfortune?
Despite Google's infamous words in its "Don't be evil" motto, its actions recently in dealing with the job-loss ravaged town of Lenoir, North Carolina gives us a sad and disappointing glimpse into the real soul of Google -- the Silicon Valley titan and leading brand in the world.
BusinessWeek just published an outstanding government/human interest story called: "The High Cost of Wooing Google" where it chronicles the story of how Google exploited the "down-on-its-luck" town of Lenoir, North Carolina with hardball negotiating tactics to extract : "a package of tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades, and other goodies valued at $212 million over 30 years, or more than $1million for each of the 210 jobs Google said it eventually hoped to create in Lenoir."
The BusinessWeek article continued:
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-07-20 18:57
Anyone who hasn't read Google's letter to the FCC today on the 700 MHz auction -- you have to -- its an absolute hoot!
First Google, despite what you may think, the US Government and FCC policy is not "for sale." (And even if you think it is, at least try to be less obvious about your cynicism in public.)
- Does Google actually think "committing" to a minimum bid of $4.6B in the 700 MHz auction in return for its demands for a change in the 1993 auction law is somehow acceptable behavior for a publicly-traded company?
- Google is crassly and ham-handedly saying that their opening bid to effectively "buy" FCC policy starts at $4.6B!
- Hello Google! You "bid" at the spectrum auction not at the FCC for policy favors. One type of "bidding" is perfectly legal the other is not.
- As only dotcom billionaires can do, Google is disrespecting the FCC as just another type of "hired help" where it just needs to negotiate their "price."
- Any supporters of Google should be mortified at Google's disrespect for, and cheapening of the FCC policy process. Google should be ashamed and embarassed by this crass letter and tactic.
- (It seems that Google is so used to buying off content providers that sue them for IP theft with "revenue sharing arrangements" that they seem to think they can buy-off whomever they want.)
Second, the demand in their letter oozes with arrogance. Let's parse the final and operative sentence of Google's letter to see just how arrogant.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-18 12:21
Please don't miss Holman Jenkin's great Wall Street Journal editorial on Google: "Sort of Evil."
I particularly like his new term for net neutrality/open access regulation: "business model chauvinism." Dead on.
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Google is lobbying for laws and regulations which will advantage their business model and further their dominance of Internet advertising, and also to "block, degrade and impair" any other business model from competing with Google.
He also points the spotlight on what Google is really doing in organizing groups to view broadband companies as the big public enemy for things they might do in the future, and how that conveniently distracts people from scrutinizing Google's own increasing dominance of online advertising and the business model of the Internet.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-07-17 09:52
My detailed analysis over the last several weeks leads me to believe that the FTC is likely to block the Google-DoubleClick merger because it will enable Google to dominate online advertising and dramatically increase the opportunity for market collusion and price manipulation in the market for consumer click data, ad-performance tools, ad-brokering and ad-exchanges.
Antitrust is fact-specific and evidence-driven. To understand the true antitrust outlook for a merger one needs to become familiar with the core facts of the case. To date, media and investment coverage of this merger has been remarkably superficial.
I see three big takeaways from my white paper.
First, the more people learn about this merger the more concern they will develop.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-07-13 11:03
FCC Chairman Martin's surprising proposed open access/net neutrality regulations for the 700 MHz auction, threaten to broadly chill the broadband investment necessary to deliver broadband deployment to all Americans.
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Chairman Martin apparently has chosen to abandon over a decade of bipartisan free-market Internet policy and adopt a new more regulatory "managed competition" broadband policy advocated by new House Chairman Ed Markey, who has strongly praised Chairman Martin for his support for net neutrality regulation/open access.
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The real world effect of this unwarranted core policy flip flop is to introduce new and very substantial policy, legal and investment uncertainty into what had been a very stable economic growth environment.
Chairman Martin has now emphatically embraced the core economic principle of former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt's Frontline Proposal (and Frontline's Google gaggle of investors), which is that market forces will not and cannot promote sufficient "competition" so the government must regulate and "manage competition" (i.e. mandate prices, terms and conditions -- either directly or indirectly) to ensure consumer welfare.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-07-12 08:51
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-11 12:27
Given the issue of whether or not the 700 Mhz auction is being run for the benefit of the American taxpayer, there is a very interesting quote from a Justice Department official today on their view of "bid rigging" in a competitive government auction, in this case concerning a defense contractor.
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"The antitrust division is committed to protecting the competitive market for Americans," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett, who heads the department's antitrust division. "We will continue to bring to justice those who rig bids and thereby deprive the public of the benefits afforded by a competitive bidding process."
It is interesting to juxtapose this Justice Department quote of today with another quote from today in the Dow Jones article on the 700 MHz auction, which quoted the position of Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge on "bid rigging":
- She acknowledged that effectively Google and public interest groups were asking the FCC to "rig the auction" to facilitate a third national broadband competitor to the incumbents - AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and the cable companies.
The ends don’t justify the means.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-11 09:47
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal today for their twin great editorials on net neutrality and the 700 MHz auction: "Reed Hundt's Spectrum Play" by the Jounal editorial writers and "Telecom Time Warp" by Robert Crandall and Hal Singer.
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The Journal editorial accurately hits on the Google/Hundt cabal to rig the auction rules so they can win the Nation's most valuable spectrum at a deep discount.
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Google is laughing all the way to the bank that they could sucker a Republican Chairman of the FCC to carry their water and stand heavily on the competitive scales to pick them as winner before the bidding commences.
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It will be interesting to see how Chairman Martin "squares this circle" and explains why market participants should ever trust what he says going forward on competition and regulation given that up to now he has discussed no market failure or consumer problem that requires regulation to solve up to now.
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My favorite point of many in Robert and Hal's great editorial is reminding everyone the outrageousness of the FCC mandating "unbundling" (a drastic action reserved for entrenched monopolies) when the wireless industry is so obviously competitive that the price of a wireless minute has fallen by 84% over the last decade!
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Amazing! Chairman Martin apparently finds market failure when prices are plummeting, consumer choice has exploded, subscribership and usage has skyrocketed and investment boomed. Huh?
Bottomline: The Bush Adminstration's sole policy goal in telecommunications has been to promote broadband investment and deployment to all Americans.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-07-10 12:47
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-07-09 10:52
The Washington Post gave a lot of "free" ink to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt today to push for his Frontline Wireless corporate welfare scheme. The article also provides a "bay window view" of Mr. Hundt's perverted view of "competition."
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Mr. Hundt said: "We're asking the FCC to place conditions on the sale of the license, just like zoning on real estate."
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Competition through zoning regulations!
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This captures the essence of Mr Hundt's "market" views. He has always thought "competition" was much too important to be left to the marketplace.
Now that his company has $3b in capital and is prepared to raise up to $10b in the next five years, according to the Post, why is he so afraid to compete in the auction like everyone else?
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